Israel

The commission that investigated Israel's near-disastrous unpreparedness for the 1973 war cleared Golda Meir of direct responsibility for the failure, yet historians still rate her handling of that single crisis well below the rest of her long career in office.

1948

1993

Six days of fighting, launched on the strength of a false Soviet intelligence report, redrew the map of the Middle East for the following half century.

1978

Yitzhak Rabin spent decades as one of Israel's hardest-line military commanders before becoming the prime minister an opponent of peace decided to kill for making it.