Menachem Begin

Menachem Begin was born in Brest, then in Russian Poland, and lost most of his family in the Holocaust. He commanded the Irgun, a Zionist paramilitary that fought British rule and carried out the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel, an attack that killed 91 people and that critics condemned as terrorism. After independence he led the right-wing opposition for nearly three decades before winning power in 1977, ending the long dominance of the Labor movement. As prime minister he signed the Camp David Accords and the peace treaty with Egypt, for which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize, while also expanding West Bank settlement. In 1982 he ordered the invasion of Lebanon; the war and the Sabra and Shatila massacre carried out by allied militia damaged his standing, and he resigned in 1983.