Meir Pa'il


Meir Pa'il was a colonel in the Israel Defense Forces, an Israeli politician, and military historian.

Biography

Pa'il was born in Jerusalem during the Mandate era as Meir Pilevsky. His parents, Nahum and Bracha Pilevsky, were pioneers of the Third Aliyah. Pa'il studied at the Tahkemoni school in Jerusalem, a school for laborer's children in Holon, and at Balfour high school in Tel Aviv. He joined the "Working Youth" movement in 1937 and served in an active signal unit for the Haganah.
Pa'il served in the Palmach from 1943 to 1948. He participated in a series of operations, including the smuggling of illegal Jewish immigrants from Syria and Lebanon, the Saison, the Night of the Bridges, and an attack on a British police position on Mount Canaan. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Pa'il served in the Negev Brigade. Pa'il served as a career officer in the IDF, commanding the 51st Battalion during the Suez Crisis, the Bahad-1 officers school from 1964 to 1966, 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 among 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. He died on September 15, 2015, due to complications of Alzheimer's disease.

Published works