Israel's sixth president: Meeting Menachem Begin at the hospital
He sat in his wheelchair (which he now needed as a result of a hip operation), looking not like a charismatic, strong prime minister, but as a frail and vulnerable elderly man.
By DVORA WAYSMANUpdated: JUNE 17, 2021 11:27MENACHEM BEGIN just before his discharge from Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem; he had been a pneumonia patient for two weeks. He is surrounded by his doctors and nurse, with the writer extreme right. Directly behind him are director-general Prof. Jonathan Halevy and his physician, Dr. Efraim (photo credit: DVORA WAYSMAN)
In the course of my long lifetime, I have met many people from all segments of society and many of them left a deep impression, But there is one man I met and spoke to for only a few minutes whom I will never forget – Menachem Begin, Israel’s sixth prime minister.At the time, from 1979 to 1993, I was working as the Press Officer and spokesperson for Shaare Zedek Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized with pneumonia. Part of my duties, which mainly involved liaison with the media and writing press releases, was to spend time with important donors who visited the hospital, and also to visit high-level patients and ensure that they had everything that they needed.Naturally, there was great media interest in everything to do with the prime minister. A modest, humble man, he had won the election as premier in 1977 and had led Israel to its first peace treaty with an Arab State – Egypt; but also into its fifth major war by invading Lebanon in June 1982 – a conflict that created political and social divisions within Israel. The object was to force the PLO out of rocket range of our northern border, which is why it was named the “Peace for Galilee” campaign. He had wanted a short, limited Israeli involvement to destroy the PLO’s infrastructure. But the invasion went much further, until Israeli soldiers besieged Beirut with the aim of driving the PLO out of all of Lebanon. A terrible blow to Israel’s image occurred in 1982, when defense minister Ariel Sharon agreed to let the Christian Phalangist militia enter Sabra and Shatilla, two Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut. It led to a massacre of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, slaughtered by the Phalangis.IN POLISH army uniform with wife Aliza in Tel Aviv. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)Menachem Begin felt Sharon had betrayed him and never recovered from the aftermath of the war, and the loss of life of our IDF soldiers.Usually, when I visited Mr. Begin briefly every morning, the ward was bustling with staff – doctors examining his chart, nurses taking his temperature and blood pressure etc. – but this was the morning of his release and for a few minutes, for the first time, I was alone with him. He sat in his wheelchair (which he now needed as a result of a hip operation), looking not like a charismatic, strong prime minister, but as a frail and vulnerable elderly man.I wanted to put into words my admiration of him. Instead, I could only come out with a fatuous sentence: “Are you happy to be going home, sir?”He gave me a kind of lopsided smile. “Home? Home for me was my wife Aliza!” She had died in November 1982 while he was on an official visit to the USA with President Ronald Reagan. I suddenly remembered a speech he once gave, in which he thanked his wife for “your affection of youth, your love of espousal, how you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown”, paraphrasing the verse from Jeremiah. My own eyes filled with tears.“I wish you a ‘refuah shleima’” I said, and he offered me his hand. I held it reverently – the hand of an old man, broken in spirit.It was only for a minute, but I will remember it for the rest of my life.The writer is the author of 14 books. Her latest novel is Searching for Sarah. dwaysman@gmail.com
