Biography
Born in Jerusalem during the Mandate era as Meir Pilevsky, Pa'il served in the Palmach between 1943 and 1948, after which he became a Brigade commander in the new Israel Defense Forces. He also headed the Central Officers School and the Department of Military Theory for the General Staff. He left the IDF in 1971.
Pa'il studied history and Middle Eastern studies at Tel Aviv University, later gaining a doctorate in military and general history.
In 1973 he was amongst the founders of the Blue-Red Movement, which merged with Maki to form Moked, which Pa'il headed.
He was elected to the Knesset in the 1973 elections on the Moked list, and was the party's only representative in the Knesset. The party merged with several others to form the Left Camp of Israel prior to the 1977 elections. The new party won two seats, which were rotated between five party members including Pa'il. However, they failed to win any seats in the 1981 elections and Pa'il did not reappear in the Knesset.
Read more about this topic: Meir Pa'il
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, memoirs to serve for a history, which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every mans life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (174095)