Historical View of the Begin Center Location

Area of the Begin Center, from the roof of the David (Daud) Brothers Building currently at the corner of Jabotinsky and Keren HaYesod Streets in the late 1930s (thanks to Lenny Ben-David):-

Netanyahu on Yechiel Kadishai

Prime Minister Netanyahu made the following remarks at today's Cabinet session:

"Yechiel Kadishai was in this room many times. He was the right-hand man and close and dedicated assistant of the late Menachem Begin. He was direct, a man of integrity, very witty and had a great Jewish soul. 

Yechiel was dedicated to the Zionist idea, the Jewish People and the Land of Israel and had a very realistic but always optimistic perspective. Until today I have not found someone who did not love him; it was impossible not to love, appreciate and honor Yechiel. While he was an organic part of the national movement, of our movement, the Likud and its Herut predecessor, he had a great heart and love that opened paths for him throughout the political spectrum. On behalf of the Cabinet, I would like to send our condolences to his wife Esther and to all members of the Kadishai family. May his memory be blessed".

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau eulogizing:

^

Begin's "Provocative Nature"

From Ian Black's "CIA spills Camp David secrets on 1978 Egyptian-Israeli agreement": Declassified documents reveal how US intelligence helped Jimmy Carter strike a Middle Eastern bargain.

...it's still interesting to get even a sanitized glimpse of what the CIA was up to as it helped prepare for one of the triumphs of US Middle East diplomacy in the 20th century...information the agency put together for President Jimmy Carter on the eve of the Camp David summit in September 1978...[a]"briefing book" includes perceptive and quotable personality profiles of the protagonists - Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president.

Looking at the Israeli leader the CIA observed "growing oppositional properties in Begin's personality." It pointed too to his "facility for statements of a provocative nature, often precipitated by reporters' questions."
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's national security adviser, told the president before the summit at the Maryland retreat:

...Begin probably believes that a failure at Camp David will hurt you and Sadat, but not him. He may even want to see Sadat discredited and you weakened, thus leaving him with the tolerable status quo instead of pressures to change his life-long beliefs concerning Judea and Samaria. (the biblical Hebrew names for the West Bank.)

The declassified records offer few clues about the part of the Camp David agreement that failed completely — the plan for Palestinian autonomy in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip...

^

Sarid Appropriates Begin

So are there or aren’t there judges in Jerusalem? There are, but they’ve disappeared.

Yossi Sarid

^