Menachem Begin's Hundredth Birthday

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Menachem Begin's Hundredth Birthday

Prime Minister Begin asks the Knesset to approve the peace treaty with Egypt, 20 March 1979. On his right, Knesset Speaker Yitzhak Shamir. (Photograph: Ya'acov Sa'ar, Government Press Office)

On August 16, 1913, Menachem Begin was born in Brest-Litovsk, which was then part of the Russian Empire and is now in Belarus. Begin was the commander of the Irgun Zvai Leumi underground movement (1943-1948) and in 1977, he became Israel's sixth prime minister. He resigned in 1983 and died in 1992.

Next year, the Israel State Archives will publish a collection of documents on the life of Menachem Begin. Several online publications have already been issued by the ISA, some of them based on these documents. To mark the centenary of Begin's birth, we are listing these publications here. The following have an introduction and some documents in English:

The Israeli Government Discusses the Results of the Six Day War, June 1967
"No More War":President Sadat's Journey to Jerusalem, November 1977
Moshe Dayan's Meeting with the Egyptian Deputy Premier, December 1977
Now or Never: US President Jimmy Carter's Visit to Israel, March 1979
The 33rd Anniversary of the Peace Treaty with Egypt, March 1979
The "Elon Moreh" High Court Decision of 22nd October 1979
The Kahan Commission on the Sabra and Shatilla Massacre, 1982-1983
Prime Minister Menachem Begin on Justice and the Rule of Law: Selected Documents