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Israeli Leaders Say Goodbye to Shamir

Yitzhak Shamir, Israel’s seventh prime minister, was laid to rest on Monday in Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl cemetery.

Shamir, who died Saturday at the age of 96, was buried in a section of Mount Herzl set aside for Israel’s leaders.

President Shimon Peres, who delivered a eulogy for Shamir at the funeral, recalled how the two had spent six years serving in the same unity government. While their ideologies different, he said, their worldviews were based on the same foundations.

“Yitzhak Shamir was a man at peace with himself. Steadfast in his opinions. Winds that blew could not bend him. Passing trends did not tempt him. His ideology grew out of the history of our nation. He believed our past is what granted legitimacy to the present,” said Peres.

Also speaking at the funeral, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of Shamir’s modest nature, saying the former resistance leader was “an unknown soldier in the underground, before the formation of the state, and an unknown soldier in the Mossad after the state was formed.”

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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