Out of Begin's Shadow

The question from Secretary of State George Shultz was one that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir did not really want to answer. He remained silent, apparently in deep thought. "On that issue," he finally said, "I will have to consult my Foreign Minister." For a moment, the American negotiators said nothing. Then they remembered that Shamir, who had been Menachem Begin's Foreign Minister, had never relinquished that title. In the ensuing laughter, Shamir achieved his aim: the question was forgotten.

That kind of finesse from a man not given to small talk or wordplay was seen by some of his aides as symbolic of Shamir's growing self-confidence since stepping out from Begin's shadow and into Israel's most demanding office just eight weeks ago. "He behaved like a real Prime Minister," said a top Israeli general who had observed Shamir throughout the Washington negotiations. "He was to the point, all businesslike, and ready to listen. He surprised me." That, in fact, was one of Shamir's aims in visiting Washington. Explained one of his aides: "He came to deliver a clear message: that he is ready to lead Israel; that he is not a Prime Minister for a limited period; that everything is open for negotiations."

Under the intense and volatile Begin, Shamir had kept a prudently low profile, first as Speaker of the Knesset and then as Foreign Minister. He watched Begin chew up such outspoken potential challengers as Moshe Dayan and Ezer Weizman. Says an "aide who has worked closely with Shamir for four years: "His calculation was the right one."

Although Shamir, 68, lost most of his family in Poland during the Holocaust, he seems less traumatized than Begin about the past. Unlike Begin, he shuns the Talmudic obsession with verbal precision, concentrating instead on the practical reality that the words are meant to address. An uninspired and an uninspiring speaker, Shamir is also less divisive than Begin. He has few intimates outside his family (wife Shulamit, 60; son Yair, 38, an air force pilot, and daughter Gilada, 34). "He is sphinxlike," says Knesset Member Amnon Rubinstein. That befits a man who was a leader of the terrorist underground before Israel's independence and a covert agent and high official of Israel's intelligence agency, MOSSAD. (Even his surname had been a deception; born Jazernicki, he chose the new identity after escaping from a British prison in 1943.) When it comes to Israel's basic security interests, those few who do know Shamir expect him to be at least as tough as Begin.

The key difference between the men may be that Shamir cares less about dogma than Begin did and seems more open to new approaches to the old Middle East problems. Where Begin heatedly dismissed the Palestine Liberation Organization as "the Nazis of the Middle East," Shamir, says an aide, "believes that the Palestinians are human beings with their own ambitions and expectations, forming a human community the Israelis should learn to know and to understand." Similarly, Shamir has conveyed to aides his belief that Israel is part of the Arab Middle East and should not close itself into "a modern Jewish ghetto."

U.S. officials concede that Shamir, as one put it, "comes across without the charisma that characterized Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Menachem Begin." Washington was uncertain too whether Shamir's apparent flexibility will lead to any substantive policy shifts by Israel. But the Prime Minister's first visit provided grounds for encouragement. "He was shrewd, tough and smart," said one U.S. official who took part in the meetings. "His focus was on programs and practical decision making." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.