important people
Menachem Begin:
- Israeli Prime Minister who made peace with Egypt. His timeline Click
- Menachem Begin never lost sight of the goal he moved to realize once he finally came to power as Israel’s sixth prime minister: a proud Jewish people, secure within their own state. Begin died of heart failure in 1992 at the age of 78. He had wanted “a simple Jewish funeral” and that is what was held 13 hours after he died at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. He was buried in a simple ceremony on the Mount of Olives, beside his beloved wife, Aliza, who died in 1982. To learn more about him Click
- When Yasir Arafat, the longtimePalestinian leader, was buried eight years ago, people crowded the streets and the rooftops in a tumultuous outpouring of passion; the air here was thick and acrid as militiamen fired off their weapons for hours. Timeline Click
- Arafat is a congenital liar. But there's more to it than that: his lies are all designed to create an aura of romance around himself and the Palestinian people. He's never had anything like a regular home life. He has no interest in comforts, possessions, or normal pleasures. He has no interest in social issues, books, or cultural matters. The life of total political commitment has turned him into a surpassingly strange creature, and he has a rapacious hunger to possess the Palestinian cause entirely by himself. To learn more about him Click
- After leaving jail, Sadat renewed contact with Nasser. Sadat held various high offices, including speaker of the Egyptian Parliament. He ascended to the Presidency in 1970 following the death of President Gamal Abd el-Nasser. His life timeline Click
- Sadat’s domestic policies included decentralization and diversification of the economy and relaxation of Egypt’s political structure long before these measures became fashionable in the developing countries. In foreign affairs, Anwar Sadat stood out for his courage and bold diplomacy. To learn more Click