Israeli president Shimon Peres is calling the late Yitzhak Shamir, dead at 96, a "brave warrior." What does that mean? It means he used terrorism with very important political consequences. As head of the Stern Gang, Shamir authorized the assassinations of Lord Moyne, the British minister in Palestine, in 1944, and Folke Bernadotte, the U.N. envoy (and Swedish count) in 1948.
The Bernadotte murder is particularly important: Bernadotte wanted to internationalize Jerusalem and limit the borders of the new Jewish state. His murder helped shift partition from 55 percent of Palestine to the Jewish state to 78 percent.
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