He loved Israel with a passion

Yitzhak Shamir's violin only had one string, and he only knew how to play different variations on one theme: Israel. During a big celebration honoring his 90th birthday several years ago he asked those in attendance, and the following generations, to remember only one thing: that he never gave up even one grain of Israeli soil.

At age 20, he immigrated to Israel to study at the Hebrew University, but he was immediately diverted into a war with the British. In the debate that erupted in pre-state Israel at the start of World War II — whether to wait for the defeat of the Nazis or continue to fight against the British — Shamir took a radical stance. He joined the Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, also known as the Stern Gang), and after the murder of Lehi founder Avraham "Yair" Stern, Shamir assumed leadership of the militia alongside Natan Yellin-Mor and Israel Eldad. He was responsible for the group's boldest operations, including the murder of the British Lord Moyne in Egypt.

Four months after the establishment of Israel, the Lehi killed U.N.-appointed Swedish mediator Folke Bernadotte. Several years later, Yellin-Mor (who took a left turn and became a big supporter of dividing Israel) began insisting that he did not recall the Lehi command making the decision to kill Bernadotte. Eldad was outraged at that allegation. Shamir liked Yellin-Mor more than he liked Eldad, whom he considered messianic. But regardless, when I asked Shamir which one of the two was speaking the truth, he shrugged his shoulder and said "Eldad."

Shamir loved Israel with a passion, and did not need messianic justifications. It was an iron love for Israel — without a single crack. He was a man of action. He was not influenced by historical indecision or patriotic poetry. In a political convention of the Lehi's party, the Fighter's List, Shamir said that if the pre-state underground had heeded the advice of genius national poet Uri Zvi Greenberg, the state would have never been established. He then served for a decade in the Mossad — an institution run by his political rivals David Ben-Gurion and Isser Harel.

Only very little is known about Shamir's personal life, especially during his time in the service of the Mossad in Paris. He loved the food in the French capital and Edith Piaf's chansons. He also wrote beautifully. When his wife Shulamit published the letters he had sent her when they were both imprisoned by the British, she asked him: "Why didn't you hold on to the letter that I sent you from prison-" It was the only time I had ever seen him smile and refrain from answering.

Shamir was goal oriented, and never took immediate history into account. When I asked him in 1979 which one of his men had killed Lehi member Eliyahu Giladi (not because he was suspected of disloyalty, God forbid, but because he suggested murdering the heads of the Jewish Agency), and which one of his men had killed Bernadotte, he refused to answer. I warned him that his generation would die out and that history would never know, and he (as did Eldad) answered: So what? Why does anyone need to know exactly who pulled the trigger?

Shamir opposed the peace treaty with Egypt, but he never undercut Menachem Begin. He also had reservations regarding the first Lebanon War, but he remained loyal. During his term as the seventh prime minister of Israel he was put to the test by the first Gulf War: everyone assumed that he would retaliate for the Iraqi missile fire; he was begged to retaliate. Even the Israel Defense Forces exerted pressure on him. But Shamir, a man with nerves of steel, refused. He knew that there was an emotional inclination to strike back against the one-sided salvos pounding his beloved country, but he also knew that it was wisest to show restraint. The IDF stayed home. Who is a hero? He who conquers his urges.

His big achievement came in the form of opening Israel's gates to Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The bleeding hearts never forgave him for pressuring the U.S. to refuse entry to these Jews, arguing that they have their own country, they have a homeland, and he worked his entire life to carry that homeland on his shoulders.