His family’s fate in Poland taught him that Jews can depend only on themselves. Nothing he led or lived through in Israel clouded that belief

The life of former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir reflected the turbulent history of his people in the almost one hundred years that elapsed between his birth in a small Polish hamlet and his death in Israel on Saturday.

Shamir, who was 96, will be remembered chiefly for his tough and unyielding attitude as Israel’s prime minister, a role he held from 1983 to 1984 and again from 1986 to 1992. He was famously proud of refusing to agree to any territorial withdrawals and stubbornly maintaining a status quo that has become, two decades after he left office, even more intractable.