Meir Pa'il

Meir Pa'il was born in Jerusalem in 1926.[1] He joined the Palmach in 1943 and served with it until the establishment of the State of Israel.[1]

His Palmach activities included participation in the Night of the Bridges and clandestine operations to bring Jewish immigrants from Lebanon and Syria into the country.[1] He also took part in an attack on the Mount Canaan police station, the Haganah's Saison campaign against the Irgun in Jerusalem, and the blowing up of the Bnot Ya'akov Bridge.[1] According to his daughter, during his Palmach service Pa'il was assigned to capture Irgun leader Menachem Begin, though the operation was ultimately never carried out.[2]

His future wife, Hasida, first encountered Pa'il during a Palmach brigade trip, when he was serving as its operations officer; she later recalled his broad general education and deep familiarity with books.[3]

During the 1948 War of Independence, Pa'il commanded a unit of the Haganah's intelligence service, the Shai.[1] He later served as operations officer of the Negev Brigade, taking part in fighting at Mamilla in Jerusalem, the capture of Beersheba, Operation Horev—which drove Egyptian forces from the Negev—and Operation Uvda.[1] He also met his future wife, Hasida, during this period.[2]

After the Palmach was disbanded, Pa'il continued his career in the Israel Defense Forces. He first served as an instructor at a commanders' course and as an operations officer.[2] During the 1956 Sinai Campaign he commanded the Golani Brigade's 51st Battalion, fighting at the Rafah and Bir Lahfan junctions.[2] Subsequent postings saw him serve as an instructor at the Command and Staff College, commander of Brigade 11, commander of the Officers' School, and head of the General Staff's combat doctrine department.[2]

His daughter said that Pa'il wrote the IDF's combat doctrine and that, while commanding the Officers' School, he insisted despite considerable opposition that every officer should feel like a "little Moses."[2] During the 1967 Six-Day War he served as an assistant to armored division commander Israel Tal.[2] Pa'il retired in 1971 with the rank of colonel.[2]

Two years after his retirement, in 1973, Pa'il founded the left-wing movement Techelet-Adom (Blue-Red), whose platform called for complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank—known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria—and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.[2] Techelet-Adom joined Maki and other left-wing groups to form the Moked alliance. Moked won one seat in the 1973 Knesset election, and Pa'il entered the Knesset on a rotation basis.[2]

After Moked dissolved, Pa'il and the movement's non-Communist members founded the Sheli camp. Sheli won two seats in the 1977 election, and Pa'il was returned to the Knesset, where he served on the Education and Immigration Absorption committees.[2] He was described as one of the prominent left-wing members of the Knesset during this period.[2]

Throughout his political career, Pa'il repeatedly called for negotiations with the Palestinians and expressed willingness to withdraw from the territories. He was among the founders of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.[2] He was also among the founders of Peace Now; a photograph from 1979 shows him demonstrating with Peace Now activists against settlers in Elon Moreh.[3] His daughter recalled him saying: "We have the ability to make peace and we need to make peace."[2]

Pa'il died on September 15, 2015, at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, aged 89, after suffering from Alzheimer's disease.[2] His son wrote that he died in his sleep and was survived by four children, eleven grandchildren, and a great-granddaughter.[2] His daughter Sigal described him as a man who continued to fight to his last breath.[2]

Maariv characterized Pa'il as one of the earliest Israeli politicians to call for a Palestinian state alongside Israel and complete withdrawal from Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.[1] His trajectory—from Palmach fighter and IDF colonel to Knesset peace advocate—made him a distinctive figure who combined the founding generation's military experience with a sustained commitment to a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[2][1]

Pa'il's advocacy of territorial withdrawal and a Palestinian state drew intense opposition. In a 2019 interview, Hasida Pa'il recalled telephone death threats from religious extremists, abusive graffiti in the family's building, and harassment of their daughter. She also alleged that their son was denied admission to an officers' course because of Pa'il's political positions.[3] These allegations were presented as her personal recollections rather than as independently corroborated findings.

The sources differ slightly on the geographic scope of Techelet-Adom's withdrawal platform: ynet specifies Judea and Samaria, while Maariv includes Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.[2][1] The accounts of Pa'il's assignment to capture Menachem Begin and his authorship of the IDF's combat doctrine likewise derive from family testimony reported by ynet rather than independent corroboration.[2]