(1913-1992) Israeli politician. He was leader of the extremist Irgun Zvai Leumi organization in Palestine from 1942 and prime minister of Israel 1977–83, as head of the right-wing Likud party. In 1978 Begin shared a Nobel Peace Prize with President Sadat of Egypt for work on the Camp David Agreements for a Middle East peace settlement.
Begin was born in Brest-Litovsk, Poland, studied law in Warsaw, and fled to the USSR 1939. As leader of the Irgun group, he was responsible in 1946 for a bomb attack at the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, which killed over 100 people.

(Irregular preterit, past participle: began, begun).
1. To have a beginning, in a temporal, spatial, or evaluative sense; SYN. start.
2. To set in motion, cause to start; SYN. lead off, start, commence.
3. To take the first step or steps in carrying out an action; SYN. get, start out, start, set about, set out, commence.
4. To come first in a series;on.
5. To begin to speak or say; he began.
6. To achieve or accomplish in the least degree, usually used in the negative.