Menachem Begin (help·info) (Hebrew: מְנַחֵם בְּגִין‎, Polish: Mieczysław Biegun, Russian: Менахем Вольфович Бегин, 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) became the sixth prime minister of the State of Israel. Before the independence, he was the leader of the Irgun, a revisionist breakaway from the larger mainstream Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on February 1, 1944, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency. He played a significant role in Jewish resistance against the British control in the waning years of the mandate, leading the more militant Zionists.

Begin was elected to the first Knesset, as head of Herut, the party he founded, and was at first on the political fringe, embodying the opposition to the Mapai-led government and Israeli establishment. He remained in opposition in the eight consecutive elections (except for a national unity government around the Six-Day War), but became more acceptable to the political center. His 1977 electoral victory and premiership ended three decades of Labour Party political dominance.

Begin’s most significant achievement as prime minister was signing a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, for which he and Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Prize for Peace. In the wake of the Camp David Accords, the Israel Defense Forces withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and returned the Egyptian territories captured in the Six-Day War. Later, Begin’s government promoted the construction of Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Begin authorized the bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq and the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to fight PLO strongholds there, igniting the 1982 Lebanon War. As Israeli military involvement in Lebanon deepened, and the Sabra and Shatila massacre carried out by the Christian militia shocked world public opinion, Begin grew increasingly isolated. As IDF forces remained mired in Lebanon and the economy suffered from hyperinflation, the public pressure on Begin mounted. Depressed by the death of his wife Aliza in November 1982, he gradually withdrew from public life, until his resignation in October 1983.