Israel's seventh prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, who passed away on Saturday at the age of 96, is to be buried in Mt. Herzl National Cemetery in Jerusalem on Monday in an official state ceremony at 6 p.m. (Israel time). Meanwhile, Shamir's defense minister during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Moshe Arens, shed some light Sunday on Israel's policy of restraint at the time, saying that Israel was preparing to attack Iraq in response to the Scud missiles fired at Israeli cities by Saddam Hussein's forces. "At the beginning of the war," said Arens, "we couldn't attack without coordinating with the Americans. As the [Scud attacks] continued, Shamir sent me to the U.S. to declare that we were about to take action, but then [U.S. President at the time George H. W.] Bush announced a cease-fire." Shamir's coffin was placed at the Knesset's Chagall State Hall on Monday to allow Israelis to pay their last respects before the funeral procession was to commence. Shamir, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, is to be buried in the plot reserved for the nation's leaders. The speakers at the funeral are to include Shamir's family members, along with President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin. At the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu recalled an anecdote that encapsulated Shamir's character: "One day, as he was sitting here in the Prime Minister's Office, a delegation of Likud members came in and asked him to advance the candidacy of another Likud member to a certain position. It was in the afternoon. Yitzhak Shamir received them, saw a large group of people in the middle of the day standing before him and told them, 'What are you doing here? Go back to work.' "That says everything about the man," continued Netanyahu, "free of propriety, a man of truth, simple, honest, and of course possessing of very powerful inner strengths." Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon said that "During his years as leader, Shamir learned to navigate the Zionist ship across stormy waters with intelligence, great wisdom and his many years of experience. I was fortunate to meet with Yitzhak Shamir while he was prime minister. I met him, as commander of Sayeret Matkal [the Israel Defense Forces' elite counter-terrorist and intelligence gathering unit], to authorize operations. His observations and questions were razor sharp." Shamir served intermittently as prime minister from 1983 to 1992 as the head of the Likud. Before entering politics, he worked at the Israeli spy agency, the Mossad, and was a member of the Revisionist underground movements Irgun and Lehi in pre-state Israel. Soon after his health began to fail in the early part of the last decade, he took residence at a Herzliya nursing home, where he stayed until his death. He is survived by two children, Gilada and Yair, and five grandchildren.
