Moshe Shamir, 83; Novelist Backed Israeli Expansion

Moshe Shamir, 83, a prolific novelist and politician who advocated expansion of Israel to its biblical borders, died from undisclosed causes Aug. 21 at Rishon Lezion near Tel Aviv.

Born in northern Palestine, Shamir led the Hashomer Hatzair movement and lived on its kibbutz before joining the Palmach, a unit of the underground Haganah army, prior to the creation of Israel in 1948. In the 1960s, he moved to the right politically, serving in parliament for the Likud Party. He walked out in protest of the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. He later founded the right-wing Tehiya, or Renaissance Party.

Shamir’s literary career began in 1947 with the novel “He Walked the Fields,� which helped codify the romantic image of the strong but sensitive native Israeli. He was also a co-founder of the Israeli army magazine Bamaheneh.

He wrote dozens of novels, short stories, plays and essays, and earned the Israel Prize for Literature in 1998. In 2001, Shamir published a biographical novel, “Yair,� about Avraham Stern, head of the right-wing Lehi, or Stern Gang, which fought the British administration in Palestine before the creation of Israel.