Israeli political history records many great humanitarian deeds, many interesting situations, and sometimes dark revelations, often all represented in a single person.

Yitzhak Shamir was born Yitzhak Yzernitzky in Ruzinoy, Poland in 1915. At age 14 he became an active member of Ze’ev Jabotinsky's Betar Zionist youth movement, led by another future Prime Minister, Menachem Begin. He studied law at the University of Warsaw, again following Begin’s path, but in 1935, before completing his degree, he moved to Palestine.

Shamir soon joined the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the underground group fighting to drive the British out of Palestine. Unsatisfied with even the harsh tactics of the Irgun, in 1940 he followed Avraham Stern into Lohamei Herut Yisrael, also known as the Stern Group. Twice Shamir was imprisoned by the British authorities and twice he escaped (after the second escape he was granted political asylum in France). Though the Stern Group leveled their terror primarily at British military, those were not their only targets.

In 1949, after Israel declared independence, Shamir disbanded the Stern Group and devoted himself to the world of business. After a brief stint in Israel’s security services, Shamir entered politics in the mid 1960s, becoming active in the campaign to free Soviet Jewry and joining Menachem Begin's Herut movement, which eventually became the Likud Party. In 1973 Shamir was elected to Knesset, became Knesset Speaker from 1977-1980 and then Foreign Minister. During that time he presided over the historic visit of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the debate over the peace treaty with Egypt. Shamir negotiated a peace treaty with Lebanon, though it was never ratified by the Lebanese government. When Menachem Begin resigned in 1983, Shamir added Prime Minister to his many positions.

In 1984, elections were held, with no party gaining the majority needed to appoint a Prime Minister. So the Likud and Labor parties agreed to share the post (can you imagine that here in the year 2000?), with Shimon Peres of Labor serving for two years followed by Shamir serving for another two after which the election of 1986 kept Shamir in office for another four years. As Prime Minister his major accomplishments include improving Israel’s relationship with the U.S under President Ronald Reagan. Shamir also ordered the airlift rescue of thousands of Ethiopian Jewry, codenamed "Operation Solomon," and he represented Israel at the Madrid Peace Conference, which brought about direct negotiations with Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinians.

The blood on Shamir’s hands came much earlier, though. On May 20, 1948, Count Folke Bernadotte was named UN Peace Mediator and given the task of helping negotiate a peace between the Arab countries and the newly formed state of Israel. As head of the Swedish Red Cross during World War II Bernadotte had used his position to negotiate with Himmler to save thousands of Jews from concentration camps. Bernadotte was able to arrange a 30-day cease-fire between Israel and the Arab states. Bernadotte became convinced that the UN partition plan for Israel and Palestine was "unfortunate" and proposed his own plan whereby Israel would occupy an even tinier sliver of land in the north that did not include the port of Haifa, the airport at Lydda, or, most striking, any claim to the city of Jerusalem. Jewish immigration to this mini-state would be suspended after two years.

This Bernadotte plan was, understandably, an outrage to Jews throughout the world. The Stern gang, under Shamir’s leadership, claimed that Bernadotte had been a Nazi collaborator. On September 17, 1948, members of the Stern Gang ambushed Bernadotte’s car and shot him dead. Shamir was never tried for the assassination. The Stern Gang was outlawed by the Israeli government and quickly disbanded. Ironically, the Arab states had already rejected Bernadotte’s plan and continued their fight to destroy the Jewish state.