As soon as Israeli state institutions were established, Begin reformed Irgun into a political party, Likud, and led it himself in the Knesset. There he was famous for insisting on observing procedure and the law. He stopped Ben Gurion from arresting the journalist Uri Avnery for expressing dissident opinions. Out of pride, he did not want to accept reparations from Germany for the Holocaust. A supporter of Arab rights, he was to offer the Palestinians autonomy but they rejected it.

Privately, Begin had the manners of a Polish gentleman of the old school. It was his custom to wear the same conventional grey suit. Happily married, he liked to stay up late with loyal friends, he could sing and had a sense of humour. When Albert Einstein accused Irgun in the New York Times of being "similar to the Nazi and Fascist Parties", Begin replied that Einstein was indeed a rare genius but "I still understand more math than he understands politics." Sir Isaiah Berlin, one of the most influential Jews of the period as well as a specialist in drawing fine moral distinctions, approved Begin's nationalist ends but condemned Irgun's means, so much so that he cut Begin dead when they were about to meet. The Daily Mail greeted Begin on a visit to London with the headline, "The Return of the Little Murderer." Once a terrorist always a terrorist — whatever the facts, that characterisation stuck.

After 19 long years in opposition in the Knesset, Begin at last won an election. As prime minister, he took the decision to accept the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat's offer of a peace treaty. Israeli settlements in Sinai had to be destroyed and the whole territory returned to Egypt. No other politician had the courage or the nobility — Shilon's word — to commit the country to peace. Soon afterwards, though, Begin assented to the invasion of Lebanon in the belief that he was protecting northern Israel from a militant PLO. Ariel Sharon, then minister of defence, kept secret from Begin his far more extensive plans for the region. Lives were lost; territory was occupied; international opinion moved against Israel. Resigning, Begin lived out the remainder of his life in loneliness and guilt. The closest he came to any apology was to concede that Irgun's hanging of the two British soldiers had indeed been cruel.

Whatever the cost to himself, Begin had succeeded in his aim to give Jews the new identity of Israelis, defined as people able and willing to take their fate into their own hands. Much of the world evidently believes that Israelis do not have a legitimate right to fight for survival and wishes that Jews were once more the people they were before nationalism, when their fate depended on others. The unspoken question here is whether Begin's "complex and tangled" personality — Shilon's words again — was in any way the cause of today's hostility towards Israel, or anti-Semitism by its proper name. De-demonised in this biography but not whitewashed, Begin is shown at last for what he was, a most tragic victim-hero of the 20th century.