Ariel Sharon (Major World Leaders)

Modern World Leaders

Ariel Sharon

Modern World Leaders Tony Blair George W. Bush Hugo Chávez Jacques Chirac Hamid Karzai Hosni Mubarak Pervez Musharraf Pope Benedict XVI Pope John Paul II Vladimir Putin The Saudi Royal Family Ariel Sharon Viktor Yushchenko

Modern World Leaders

Ariel Sharon Samuel Willard Crompton

Ariel Sharon Copyright © 2007 by Infobase Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Chelsea House An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York, NY 10001 ISBN-10: 0-7910-9263-1 ISBN-13: 978-0-7910-9263-7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Crompton, Samuel Willard. Ariel Sharon / Samuel Willard Crompton. p. cm. — (Modern world leaders) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7910-9263-1 (hardcover) 1. Sharon, Ariel—Juvenile literature. 2. Prime ministers—Israel—Biography—Juvenile literature. 3. Generals—Israel—Biography—Juvenile literature. 4. Israel—Politics and government—20th century—Juvenile literature. I. Title. DS126.6.S42C76 2007 956.9405’4092—dc22 [B] 2006032678 Chelsea House books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Chelsea House on the World Wide Web at http://www.chelseahouse.com Text design by Erik Lindstrom Cover design by Takeshi Takehashi Printed in the United States of America Bang EJB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. All links and Web addresses were checked and verified to be correct at the time of publication. Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, some addresses and links may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

Table of Contents Foreword: On Leadership

6

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Over the Canal From Boy to Man Commando and Paratrooper Tank Commander Political Beginnings The Lebanon Disaster On the Margins Failed Peace Prime Minister Sharon and Israel

12 19 29 39 48 56 65 75 83 94

Chronology

100

Bibliography

103

Further Reading

104

Index

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Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

On Leadership

L

eadership, it may be said, is really what makes the world go round. Love no doubt smoothes the passage; but love is a private transaction between consenting adults. Leadership is a public transaction with history. The idea of leadership affirms the capacity of individuals to move, inspire, and mobilize masses of people so that they act together in pursuit of an end. Sometimes leadership serves good purposes, sometimes bad; but whether the end is benign or evil, great leaders are those men and women who leave their personal stamp on history. Now, the very concept of leadership implies the proposition that individuals can make a difference. This proposition has never been universally accepted. From classical times to the present day, eminent thinkers have regarded individuals as no more than the agents and pawns of larger forces, whether the gods and goddesses of the ancient world or, in the modern era, race, class, nation, the dialectic, the will of the people, the spirit of the times, history itself. Against such forces, the individual dwindles into insignificance. So contends the thesis of historical determinism. Tolstoy’s great novel War and Peace offers a famous statement of the case. Why, Tolstoy asked, did millions of men in the Napoleonic Wars, denying their human feelings and their common sense, move back and forth across Europe slaughtering their fellows? “The war,” Tolstoy answered, “was bound to happen simply because it was bound to happen.” All prior history determined it. As for leaders, they, Tolstoy said, “are but the labels that serve to give a name to an end and, like labels, they have the least possible



“ON LEADERSHIP” connection with the event.” The greater the leader, “the more conspicuous the inevitability and the predestination of every act he commits.” The leader, said Tolstoy, is “the slave of history.” Determinism takes many forms. Marxism is the determinism of class. Nazism the determinism of race. But the idea of men and women as the slaves of history runs athwart the deepest human instincts. Rigid determinism abolishes the idea of human freedom—the assumption of free choice that underlies every move we make, every word we speak, every thought we think. It abolishes the idea of human responsibility, since it is manifestly unfair to reward or punish people for actions that are by definition beyond their control. No one can live consistently by any deterministic creed. The Marxist states prove this themselves by their extreme susceptibility to the cult of leadership. More than that, history refutes the idea that individuals make no difference. In December 1931, a British politician crossing Fifth Avenue in New York City between 76th and 77th streets around 10:30 p.m. looked in the wrong direction and was knocked down by an automobile—a moment, he later recalled, of a man aghast, a world aglare: “I do not understand why I was not broken like an eggshell or squashed like a gooseberry.” Fourteen months later an American politician, sitting in an open car in Miami, Florida, was fired on by an assassin; the man beside him was hit. Those who believe that individuals make no difference to history might well ponder whether the next two decades would have been the same had Mario Constasino’s car killed Winston Churchill in 1931 and Giuseppe Zangara’s bullet killed Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. Suppose, in addition, that Lenin had died of typhus in Siberia in 1895 and that Hitler had been killed on the western front in 1916. What would the twentieth century have looked like now? For better or for worse, individuals do make a difference. “The notion that a people can run itself and its affairs anonymously,” wrote the philosopher William James, “is now well known to be the silliest of absurdities. Mankind does nothing save through initiatives on the part of inventors, great or small,





FOREWORD and imitation by the rest of us—these are the sole factors in human progress. Individuals of genius show the way, and set the patterns, which common people then adopt and follow.” Leadership, James suggests, means leadership in thought as well as in action. In the long run, leaders in thought may well make the greater difference to the world. “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong,” wrote John Maynard Keynes, “are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. . . . The power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.” But, as Woodrow Wilson once said, “Those only are leaders of men, in the general eye, who lead in action. . . . It is at their hands that new thought gets its translation into the crude language of deeds.” Leaders in thought often invent in solitude and obscurity, leaving to later generations the tasks of imitation. Leaders in action—the leaders portrayed in this series—have to be effective in their own time. And they cannot be effective by themselves. They must act in response to the rhythms of their age. Their genius must be adapted, in a phrase from William James, “to the receptivities of the moment.” Leaders are useless without followers. “There goes the mob,” said the French politician, hearing a clamor in the streets. “I am their leader. I must follow them.” Great leaders turn the inchoate emotions of the mob to purposes of their own. They seize on the opportunities of their time, the hopes, fears, frustrations, crises, potentialities. They succeed when events have prepared the way for them, when the community is awaiting to be aroused, when they can provide the clarifying and organizing ideas. Leadership completes the circuit between the individual and the mass and thereby alters history. It may alter history for better or for worse. Leaders have been responsible for the most extravagant follies and most

“ON LEADERSHIP” monstrous crimes that have beset suffering humanity. They have also been vital in such gains as humanity has made in individual freedom, religious and racial tolerance, social justice, and respect for human rights. There is no sure way to tell in advance who is going to lead for good and who for evil. But a glance at the gallery of men and women in Modern World Leaders suggests some useful tests. One test is this: Do leaders lead by force or by persuasion? By command or by consent? Through most of history leadership was exercised by the divine right of authority. The duty of followers was to defer and to obey. “Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do and die.” On occasion, as with the so-called enlightened despots of the eighteenth century in Europe, absolutist leadership was animated by humane purposes. More often, absolutism nourished the passion for domination, land, gold, and conquest and resulted in tyranny. The great revolution of modern times has been the revolution of equality. “Perhaps no form of government,” wrote the British historian James Bryce in his study of the United States, The American Commonwealth, “needs great leaders so much as democracy.” The idea that all people should be equal in their legal condition has undermined the old structure of authority, hierarchy, and deference. The revolution of equality has had two contrary effects on the nature of leadership. For equality, as Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out in his great study Democracy in America, might mean equality in servitude as well as equality in freedom. “I know of only two methods of establishing equality in the political world,” Tocqueville wrote. “Rights must be given to every citizen, or none at all to anyone . . . save one, who is the master of all.” There was no middle ground “between the sovereignty of all and the absolute power of one man.” In his astonishing prediction of twentieth-century totalitarian dictatorship, Tocqueville explained how the revolution of equality could lead to the Führerprinzip and more terrible absolutism than the world had ever known.



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FOREWORD But when rights are given to every citizen and the sovereignty of all is established, the problem of leadership takes a new form, becomes more exacting than ever before. It is easy to issue commands and enforce them by the rope and the stake, the concentration camp and the gulag. It is much harder to use argument and achievement to overcome opposition and win consent. The Founding Fathers of the United States understood the difficulty. They believed that history had given them the opportunity to decide, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in the first Federalist Paper, whether men are indeed capable of basing government on “reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend . . . on accident and force.” Government by reflection and choice called for a new style of leadership and a new quality of followership. It required leaders to be responsive to popular concerns, and it required followers to be active and informed participants in the process. Democracy does not eliminate emotion from politics; sometimes it fosters demagoguery; but it is confident that, as the greatest of democratic leaders put it, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. It measures leadership by results and retires those who overreach or falter or fail. It is true that in the long run despots are measured by results too. But they can postpone the day of judgment, sometimes indefinitely, and in the meantime they can do infinite harm. It is also true that democracy is no guarantee of virtue and intelligence in government, for the voice of the people is not necessarily the voice of God. But democracy, by assuring the right of opposition, offers built-in resistance to the evils inherent in absolutism. As the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr summed it up, “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to justice makes democracy necessary.” A second test for leadership is the end for which power is sought. When leaders have as their goal the supremacy of a master race or the promotion of totalitarian revolution or the acquisition and exploitation of colonies or the protection of

“ON LEADERSHIP” greed and privilege or the preservation of personal power, it is likely that their leadership will do little to advance the cause of humanity. When their goal is the abolition of slavery, the liberation of women, the enlargement of opportunity for the poor and powerless, the extension of equal rights to racial minorities, the defense of the freedoms of expression and opposition, it is likely that their leadership will increase the sum of human liberty and welfare. Leaders have done great harm to the world. They have also conferred great benefits. You will find both sorts in this series. Even “good” leaders must be regarded with a certain wariness. Leaders are not demigods; they put on their trousers one leg after another just like ordinary mortals. No leader is infallible, and every leader needs to be reminded of this at regular intervals. Irreverence irritates leaders but is their salvation. Unquestioning submission corrupts leaders and demeans followers. Making a cult of a leader is always a mistake. Fortunately hero worship generates its own antidote. “Every hero,” said Emerson, “becomes a bore at last.” The single benefit the great leaders confer is to embolden the rest of us to live according to our own best selves, to be active, insistent, and resolute in affirming our own sense of things. For great leaders attest to the reality of human freedom against the supposed inevitabilities of history. And they attest to the wisdom and power that may lie within the most unlikely of us, which is why Abraham Lincoln remains the supreme example of great leadership. A great leader, said Emerson, exhibits new possibilities to all humanity. “We feed on genius. . . . Great men exist that there may be greater men.” Great leaders, in short, justify themselves by emancipating and empowering their followers. So humanity struggles to master its destiny, remembering with Alexis de Tocqueville: “It is true that around every man a fatal circle is traced beyond which he cannot pass; but within the wide verge of that circle he is powerful and free; as it is with man, so with communities.”

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C H A P T E R

1

Over the Canal It was October 1973, and Israel was in trouble. In its 25-year his-

tory, the Jewish state had successfully fought off a number of Arab attacks, but that month real gloom filled the country. On October 6, the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), Egyptian and Syrian armed forces unexpectedly attacked Israel from the north and west. The Egyptians succeeded in crossing the heavily defended Suez Canal, something the best Israeli experts had believed was impossible, given the supremacy of the Israeli Air Force. At the same time, the Syrians attacked the Golan Heights, located at the place where Israel and Syria meet. The Syrians were slowly being pushed back, but at a great loss in lives and equipment on both sides. In this crisis, Israelis looked to Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. Though very different, the two functioned very well as a team. But, as with everything else, the force of the Arab attack took them by surprise.

12

OVER THE CANAL As days passed, Israelis began to criticize both their prime minister and their defense minister. Why was the army holding back? Why did Moshe Dayan, famous for his victories in 1967, prevent a wholesale thrashing of the Arab invaders? The answers are not simple: Moshe Dayan had grown overconfident in the years following 1967, and Golda Meir had let the American diplomats, Henry Kissinger most especially, influence her foreign policy. Second-guessing evaded the central question, though: How had the Arabs so radically changed their style of fighting? There was one man who wanted none of the answers or the second guessing. He believed the Arab foe was as vulnerable as ever and that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) could win yet another major victory in the string of Arab-Israeli Wars. That man was Ariel Sharon. Born in 1928, Sharon was 45 that autumn. He had retired from active duty in the military at the rank of major general just a few months earlier and was prepared to enter politics. (Critics suggested that the flamboyant general would have a harder time managing voters than he did soldiers.) As soon as the Arab attacks commenced on October 6, Sharon was back with his unit, a brigade of Israeli tanks. Within days, he was begging the Israeli high command to allow him to go on the offensive. It seemed absurd. Here Israel was suffering its worst setback in years, and the retired-turned-active-duty general was asking to attack. Moshe Dayan had great faith in Ariel Sharon, however. The two men shared many qualities, including their identities as sabras, members of the first native-born generation of Israelis. On the other hand, Dayan was already being criticized, and he did not wish to run another risk. Therefore, he let the commanding general on the Sinai Peninsula call the shots, and for a solid week the answer was “no.” Then came a major tank battle, on October 14. Nearly 1,000 Egyptian tanks streamed east into the Sinai Peninsula, to be met

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ARIEL SHARON

The Middle East War of 1973, also known as the Yom Kippur War, began at the start of the Jewish holiday on October 6, 1973, when Egyptian and Syrian forces launched a surprise attack on Israel. Former general Ariel Sharon was called to order as commander of an armored reserve and led his forces across the Suez Canal. Here, Sharon (right) views a map with Major General Bar-Lev in the Sinai Desert on October 10, 1973.

by roughly half their number of Israelis. The one-day battle confirmed much of what Sharon believed: These Egyptians were the same ones he had met and defeated before. They did

OVER THE CANAL not fight better than in the past; rather, they had relied on the element of surprise to accomplish their early success. Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir were heartened enough by Israel’s success in the tank battle to authorize Sharon to make a limited move toward the Suez Canal. If all went well, he could even cross the Canal and thereby threaten the rear of the extended Egyptian forces. The canal zone was very familiar territory to Sharon; he had fought there in 1956, as well as in 1967. Even so, some were nervous as he commenced his assault under the cover of night. Sharon’s plan was to head toward the canal and drive a wedge between the Second and Third Egyptian armies. If he moved fast enough, he might cross the canal before they even suspected his plan. Sharon and his men found, however, that the Egyptians were different than they had been in 1967; they fought fiercely, even when surprised. While fighting raged at an area called “Chinese Farm” (Asian military instructors had been there in years past), Sharon and his elite troops spearheaded the attack on the canal. They reached it sometime during the night of October 16–17, and the next day Israeli bulldozers broke the last of the earthen ramparts set up by the Egyptians. Sharon described the battle later, in Warrior: An Autobiography: “Directly in front of us across two hundred yards of water was Egypt. We stood there in the opening and gazed at the trees and lush green foliage. On our side everything was barren sand and dust. On theirs the palm trees and orchards grew in lush profusion around the Sweet Water Canal. From where we stood it looked like paradise.” Sharon knew land and landscape. He had worked on a farm all during his boyhood, and now he managed a large farm and orchard in the Negev Desert. He shook aside the mesmerizing feelings about the terrain, however, and proceeded to guide his men across. They were the first Israeli unit to cross the Suez Canal into Egypt.

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ARIEL SHARON

Sharon had taken what was at best a stalemate, and at worst a defeat, and turned it into one of the most surprising victories in the history of modern war. Remarkably, the Egyptian high command did not realize the seriousness of the situation. For that matter, the Israeli high command seemed unable to take advantage of the moment. A day after he crossed, Sharon found himself explaining to his commanding officer, and to Moshe Dayan, how they could exploit this breakthrough. In 1956 and 1967, such explanations had been unnecessary, for the Israeli army had operated on the single mission of “attack.” Sharon described the dilemma he encountered in 1973 in his autobiography: Dayan had no intention of leaving; he wanted to be taken to the canal and then to the other side. . . . Dayan was practically beside himself about the lack of movement. “You have to urge them to start crossing,” he told me. “We are wasting time.” I had a sudden flashback to our discussion in the yard of that ma’oz during the War of Attrition. “Moshe,” I said, “Give them an order!”

So, finally it happened. Once Moshe Dayan committed himself, the Israeli troops and tanks started flooding to the western side of the canal. Within two days, Sharon had enough men and material to begin sneaking up the west side, knocking out the antiaircraft missile batteries of the Egyptian army. As he did so, the Israeli air force began to take possession of the skies above the battlefield. In just three days, Sharon had taken what was at best a stalemate, and at worst a defeat, and turned it into one of the most surprising victories in the history of modern war.

OVER THE CANAL

Golda Meir is photographed with U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger at a state dinner in Jerusalem in 1974. That year, following the Yom Kippur War, Meir resigned as prime minister of Israel. Four years later, she died of cancer at the age of 80.

Yet, he was denied the fruits of his victory. Prime Minister Golda Meir was now aware that her nation had the upper hand: Sharon and his men had virtually encircled the Egyptian Second Army, which, lacking fresh supplies, might have to surrender. However, Meir was also in close communication with U.S. president Richard Nixon and U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger. Both men believed that this was a moment from

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ARIEL SHARON which a peace agreement could eventually be reached; they also believed that it would not happen if the Israelis were allowed to humiliate the Arabs in the late stage of battle. Therefore, the American administration put powerful pressure on Golda Meir to agree to a cease-fire. That would leave Sharon and his men on the west side of the canal but also would leave the Egyptian Third Army unharmed. Enraged, Sharon fumed, stormed, and managed to delay the implementation of the cease-fire, but the guns stopped on October 23. The Yom Kippur War had lasted 17 days and cost Israel about 2,300 lives: Egyptian and Syrian losses were much greater. Sharon remained with his men until the end of the year, and then he went home to cast his ballot in the new parliamentary elections. He was campaign manager for the Likud (Unity) Party, which did better than expected but still did not manage to topple the Labor Party government of Golda Meir. Sharon gave his last speech to his men on January 20, 1974; he recounted it in his autobiography: We fought. Hundreds of our best fighters fell in battle, and many more were wounded—but we won. You won. Despite everything. And you did it with devotion and self-sacrifice, with stubbornness and valor. . . . I leave you today sorrowfully. I wish every one of you a quick return to your own homes. But if we have to come back and resume our fight—I promise that I will be with you.

When he arrived in Tel Aviv, Sharon attended a huge Likud Party rally in the Kings of Israel Square. The enormous, cheering crowd chanted, “Arik, King of Israel!”

C H A P T E R

2

From Boy to Man Ariel Sharon (everyone called him “Arik”) was born February 27,

1928. His story begins a decade earlier, though, at a time when Palestine and the Middle East were in a state of flux.

THE LAST STAGES OF WORLD WAR I In 1917, World War I (1914–1918) was in its fourth year. Four events that year paved the way for the ascension of the Sharon family and the future state of Israel. In February 1917, revolutionaries overthrew Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Czar Nicholas, a kind, well-meaning man, was the last leader of the Romanov Dynasty. He blundered in taking his country into World War I. By 1917, more than 3 million Russians had been killed, with no end in sight. The czarist government was so weak and ineffectual that it took only one big push to dethrone the czar and install a new Provisional Government, led by Alexander Kerensky. Liberals, 19

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ariel sharon constitutionalists, and Jews were thrilled by the change. Russian Jews had been severely persecuted during Czar Nicholas’s reign, and they now hoped for better things. The Provisional Government lasted for only eight months. In the spring of 1917, Vladimir Illyich Ulyanov (better known as Lenin) returned to Russia and prepared for a second revolution, and in October 1917, his followers carried it out. The Provisional Government was overthrown, Kerensky went into exile, and Lenin began to create in Russia his new socialist state. (Within a few years, he renamed it the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.) This spelled bad news for Russian Jews. They had been pleased with the new Provisional Government and hopeful for the future, but those hopes were dashed by the success of Lenin and his associates. The new Communist Russian government did not like minorities of any type, including Jews. Russia was (and is) a vast land that is home to millions of people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds. Lenin and his fellow Communist leaders decided that minority allegiances were detrimental to the new Communist government, and they began to persecute Jews, although not to the same extent as the former czarist government. Ariel Sharon’s parents had not yet met in 1917. Their future, and that of their two children, however, was in some ways determined by the events of 1917. The creation of a new Communist government made it more attractive, even necessary, for them to leave their Russian homeland. There were two other events that year that helped make their leavetaking possible. On November 4, 1917, only three weeks after Lenin and his associates toppled the Provisional Government in Russia, Britain endorsed the idea of a national homeland for the Jewish people. Named the “Balfour Declaration,” in honor of British Secretary of State Arthur Balfour, the document said that His

from boy to man

The Balfour Declaration, a letter from Britain’s official Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, addressed to Jewish representative Lord Rothschild, laid the foundation of the state of Israel, promising a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine. In the letter, Balfour wrote, “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

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ariel sharon Majesty’s government would “look with favor” on the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Jews around the world were elated by this development. For the first time in about 1,900 years, a major world power had endorsed a homeland for the Jews. Even better news followed. On December 6, 1917, just one month after the Balfour Declaration, British troops entered the Holy City of Jerusalem. Britain was fighting the Ottoman Turks, who were allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary. British troops came north from Egypt and liberated the Holy City and the Holy Land, which, for the first time in about 700 years, was occupied by Christian forces. Given that the government of King George V had issued the Balfour Declaration and that King George’s troops had pushed the Turks out of the Holy Land, it was natural that Jews around the world would believe things were about to get better for them. Rather than wait for action from the British or anyone else, Jews began migrating to Palestine. (Note that in this chapter, “Palestine” and “the Holy Land” are used as synonyms.) Samuil and Vera Scheinerman, Ariel Sharon’s parents, were among those who migrated. A few years later, they had their only son (who took a new, more Hebrew, name as a young officer in the Israeli army).

KFAR MALAL Born in western Russia, Samuil Scheinerman was the son of an ardent Zionist (he believed the Jews should return to the Holy Land. Samuil studied agronomy (plant and soil science) at the University of Tiflis in what is now the Republic of Georgia, where he met Vera Schneirov. The youngest child in the only Jewish family in her Russian village, Vera was both ambitious and determined. She studied medicine at the university and was about two years short of her medical degree when the couple married and left for Palestine.

from boy to man The Scheinermans left in haste because in 1921, the Russian Communist government began to persecute Jews in the area. The young couple landed in Tel Aviv, the major port of entry for the Holy Land, in 1922. Samuil and Vera were articulate and educated, and they felt a strong call to the land of Palestine. They settled about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of Tel Aviv, in an agricultural community called Kfar Malal. Today, one can drive from the city to the town in less than half an hour, but in 1922, the distance created a vast separation. Samuil and Vera were pioneers in the land they called Zion. They had two children. Dita was born in 1926 and Ariel in 1928. Samuil and Vera did not fit in easily with their Jewish neighbors. Samuil was a deeply stubborn and proud man, who insisted people call him “Agronomist Scheinerman.” Eventually, he built a wall around his farm and orchard, both to keep neighbors out and to show that he was master of his domain. This went against the policy of the moshav (collective farm) and made the Scheinermans both feared and mistrusted by their neighbors. The mistrust was mutual. Once, when Ariel was about five, he fell from his favorite donkey and split his chin. Rather than take him to the local moshav doctor, Vera picked him up and ran 2 or 3 miles (3.2 to 4.8 km) to a Russian-born doctor in another village. Episodes like this confirmed the division between the Scheinermans and their neighbors. Years later, in his autobiography, Sharon expressed the problem this way: The problem was that [my father] was by nature unable to compromise. The problem was also that he was an agricultural scientist, and, in his own field, a visionary. Nor was he the kind to keep his mouth shut and nurse secret resentments. And if he was convinced of his position, he would not give in, not if a majority was against him and not if everyone was against him.

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ariel sharon Later, people would say much the same things about Sharon himself.

ZION AND ZIONIST Zion means “place of happiness and peace.” Zionist means “he or she who believes that the Jews must live in the Holy Land.” Zion comes from the Old Testament. It was both the dream and the ambition of the ancient Hebrews to have a land called Zion, a place of peace and plenty. The ancient Hebrews did not have peace, however. They had to fight with the Canaanites, Philistines, Assyrians, and others. In 70 a.d., Roman legions destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and exiled the Jewish people to other parts of the Mediterranean. Over the centuries, Jews moved to every country of Europe, including Russia. There seemed no way to bring these Jews of the diaspora (dispersal) together once again. In the late nineteenth century, a handful of Jewish intellectuals, notably Theodore Herzl, began the Zionist Movement. They called for a return to the Holy Land and inspired an entire generation of European and Russian Jews to emigrate. For most of these people, however, the move was impossible. Some governments forbade the movement of Jews across their borders, and the Ottoman Turks were still in charge of Palestine. World War I changed everything. The British capture of Jerusalem, the Balfour Declaration, and the downfall of the Ottoman Turkish Empire all meant that it was now possible for Jews to pick up and move to Palestine. They did, in small but ever increasing numbers. As they went, they became Zionist pioneers, creating a new Jewish state in the land which had been forbidden to them since 70 a.d. PALESTINE IN THE 1930s Palestine was a deeply divided land in the 1930s and early 1940s. In the years leading up to Ariel Sharon’s bar mitzvah (at

from boy to man the age of 13), Palestinian Jews and Arabs were constantly arguing. Jews felt the land belonged to them because of the promises God had made to Abraham and Isaac; Arabs pointed out that they had been on the land for hundreds of years. Sometimes, it was a war of words, and sometimes, it was a war waged with knives, clubs, and stones. Great Britain had a “mandate,” issued by the League of Nations, to administer Palestine until its people came of age politically, meaning that they were able to manage their own affairs. The British had soldiers, guns, and planes to administer the land, but they could not keep peace between the Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land. One prominent British leader claimed that two hours of listening to Arab complaints made him want to join a synagogue and that two hours of Jewish complaints made him want to visit a mosque. There were comical moments in the Arab-Jewish struggle, but many bitter ones, as well. By 1941, armed conflict had broken out in the land, with the British acting as referees. Ariel was too young to participate in the guerrilla battles of the time, but he did begin to guard the moshav fields at night: He carried a club and a curved dagger his father gave him on his bar mitzvah. Many nights of solitary duty guarding the fields reinforced the sense of alienation he already suffered. He quarreled with his parents (when he dared), they quarreled with the other moshav members, and all the Jews of Palestine quarreled and sometimes fought with their Arab neighbors. It was a very difficult time to be in Palestine.

FIRST LOVE Arab and Jewish boys of the 1940s did not enjoy an adolescence in the sense that we know it today. A boy became a man at 13 and was expected to carry on the work of his family. For the moment, Sharon’s work came in the form of high school in Tel Aviv (he had to walk for an hour each morning to catch

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During the 1930s, Palestinian Jews and Arabs were in constant conflict. The two ethnic groups fought over rights of the Holy Land; an argument that has continued to this day. In the photograph above, an Arab mob protests government measures protecting emigrating Jews on November 4, 1933.

from boy to man a rickety bus into the city). This was a delightful change for the teenager: He had spent nearly his entire life on the farm, and his maternal grandmother, who lived in the city, provided a warm refuge for him in the afternoons. All too soon, however, it was over, and in the spring of 1945 he graduated. By now, the conflict between Arabs and Jews had escalated to a very serious level. Sharon joined the Haganah (“Defense”), a Jewish militia force that guarded villages and farms. Increasingly, he was being drawn to the military rather than to the hard farm work his father had taught him. Around this time, too, he fell in love. Her name was Margalit Zimmerman, and she was a Romanian Jew whose family emigrated to Israel right after the end of World War II. The Zimmermans had family members who had spent time in Nazi concentration camps, and they were very conscious of their narrow escape. Delighted to be in Palestine, where hope seemed more plentiful, the Zimmermans settled at Kfar Malal, and young Sharon fell madly for Margalit, whom he called “Gali.” Sharon described his early days with Gali in his autobiography, “She was just sixteen then, still a girl, and very shy. Being with her was intoxicating. . . . In the evenings we would go out and sit next to the old village well in the middle of the groves, holding hands and talking in the dark. . . . It was the first time I had seen her eyes. They were hazel and seemed speckled with gold.” He had not seen her eyes before because they had to meet in the dark. Sharon had cut a hole through his father’s famous fence around the property so he and Gali could meet. Gali may have reminded him of his mother, because she planned to be a nurse (his mother’s medical ambitions had never been fulfilled, but she kept her scalpel and medical books on a separate shelf in the family home).

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ariel sharon Sharon was young and in love. As he was about to launch his adult life, however, the British government, the United Nations, and the Palestinian Arabs created a situation in which he and other Jews would have to fight for their lives. The War of Independence was about to begin.

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Commando and Paratrooper The birth of the State of Israel was one of the most dramatic

moments of the twentieth century. Idealists, romantics, and hard-headed people around the world rejoiced because the Jews, who had suffered so much at the hands of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime, were about to have a homeland of their own. At around 4:00 p.m. on May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion stood beneath a painting of Theodore Herzl, founder of the Zionist Movement, and announced that the State of Israel would come into being at the stroke of midnight. Britain had exercised a mandate over Palestine for the past 25 years, but was exasperated by Jew and Arab alike, and its rule would end at the same moment that the new State of Israel was born. The plans had been in the works for some months. In November 1947, the British government took the matter to

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David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, reads the Jewish “Declaration of Independence” on May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Israel. Ben-Gurion announced that Israel would become an official state at the stroke of midnight, one of the defining moments of the twentieth century.

the United Nations (UN), which had been established two years earlier, and asked it to find an answer to the Palestine situation. The UN voted to create a Palestinian state and a Jewish one, side by side in the Holy Land. The new Jewish state, which Ben-Gurion named Israel, was very small and

commando and paratrooper difficult to defend. At its narrowest spot, the new state was only about 15 miles (24 km) across. None of this stopped the celebrations. Jews went mad in Tel Aviv on May 14, cheering Ben-Gurion and their new country. Ariel Sharon had turned 19 a few months earlier. He was now a grown man and spending more time with the Jewish defense forces than with his family. He came home briefly on the afternoon of May 14, however, and found his father planting new trees in the orchard. Surprised that his father could pay attention to fruit and trees on a day like this, Sharon asked about it and was reprimanded in reply, “In days of confusion like this everyone should do his best in his own little corner. Do you think this is the time to cry and weep? Just stick to your job.” He recounted the conversation in his autobiography Warrior. Again, Sharon was struck by his father’s stubbornness, but he was about to demonstrate some stubbornness of his own.

DAVID BEN-GURION David Ben-Gurion was one of the most charismatic—and maddening—of all twentieth-century leaders. He was a man on a mission, a man with a plan. Born in Poland in the 1880s, Ben-Gurion grew up with both the idea of Zionism and the reality of discrimination against Jews. Polish Jews did not suffer as much as Russian ones did, but they were very much second-class citizens in their own land. Arriving in Palestine in 1906, Ben-Gurion became one of the earliest pioneers and thinkers of what became the Jewish state. Year after year, he toiled on behalf of the Jewish people, and his efforts bore fruit both in the Balfour Declaration and in the creation of the State of Israel by the United Nations in 1948. As the country’s first prime minister, Ben-Gurion wanted to erase any memory of what life had been for Jews in the pre-Israel days. He cheered the sabras and required young

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ariel sharon army officers to change their names to more Hebrew-like ones: for example, Ariel Scheinerman became Ariel Sharon. Although a masterful statesman and politician, BenGurion did stumble at times. He played political factions against each other within Israel, and sometimes he did the same with the governments of other nations. His only major disaster was the Suez War of 1956. It is safe to say that BenGurion was the George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton of the new Israeli nation—all rolled into one.

THE WAR OF 1948 Israel came into being at midnight on May 15, 1948. Hours later, it was attacked by most of its Arab neighbors. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and others were determined to wipe out the small, budding Jewish state. To the Arab way of thinking, Israel had been created in their midst to make up for centuries of bad treatment of the Jews by Europeans. Why should Arab nations lose land and title because of the sins of Adolf Hitler and others? The war began at once. The Arab states had more men, more planes, and more military experience. The Israelis had something, too, though: leadership and willpower. David Ben-Gurion had sensed that there would be an Arab attack. He had had the Jewish militia (Haganah) train and retrain throughout the 1940s. Not only that, but some of the Jewish fighters were men and women who had recently been freed from concentration camps in Europe. Such people fought with a ferocity born of desperation. One could argue that the Arabs were ill-prepared for the war they began. Most of the military equipment used by the Arabs had come to them from British sources during World War I or later, and it was rusty and poorly kept. The Arabs did not have many technicians or inventors of their own.

commando and paratrooper Even so, the weight of Arab numbers told at first. The Egyptian army came within 20 miles (32 km) of Tel Aviv, and Egyptian planes bombed the city from the air (for the moment, the Israelis had no planes or pilots to fly them). Meanwhile, the Jordanians came west and besieged the Old City of Jerusalem, which had a substantial Israeli population. If Tel Aviv was the nerve center of the Israeli nation—complete with its political and commercial life—then Jerusalem was its heart and soul. David Ben-Gurion ordered that supplies be sent to Jerusalem, no matter what the cost. This was to be Ariel Sharon’s first experience of major combat. By now Sharon was a platoon commander, leader of about 50 men. Sharon was young for such a job, but he had the willpower and physical presence necessary to lead men into battle. (Major Israeli leaders later remarked on these qualities in Sharon.) As part of the Alexandroni Brigade, Sharon’s mission was to capture the key town of Latrun, located on a height blocking the path from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Everything went wrong. The Israelis moved up a hill early in the morning, before daylight, but the Jordanians located them and rained down rifle fire. The Israeli artillery was far in the rear and could make no impact. The Israelis were soon pinned down, with the Jordanians making repeated attacks on their position. Sharon watched helplessly as a boy from Kfar Malal, his own village, was shot dead. Things got even worse with the daylight. The fog seemed to be more in the Israeli’s eyes than in those of their enemy. The Jordanians took plenty of casualties themselves, but they still held Latrun, and Sharon’s platoon was already cut by half. He found himself desperately thirsty and tried to divert his mind by thinking about the Whitman soda shop back in Tel Aviv. Finally, it was time to retreat, and during the run back Sharon was hit in the abdomen by a bullet. The next thing he knew, he was coming back to consciousness in an Israeli hospital.

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ariel sharon Every military commander knows what it is like to be in a harrowing, desperate situation. However, few of the other great twentieth-century military leaders—including Patton, Pershing, and Rommel—met such a horrific defeat on the event of their first command. Sharon survived. He recovered within a few months and was ready to be on the front lines again that autumn, but he did not see major action again in the 1948 war. The conflict petered out that fall, and an armistice was signed between Israel and her Arab foes in March 1949. Against heavy odds, the Republic of Israel had survived.

REST AND RELAXATION Sharon was only 21 in 1949, but he had lived through more than many people twice his age. Years of toil on the farm, years of anxiety, and a year of fighting the Arabs had all taken their toll. He contracted malaria in 1950 and had to be hospitalized for some time. When he had recovered his health, Sharon was given leave from the army, and he went abroad on the first real vacation of his life: He went to the United States. The United States had a particular fascination for Israelis. Not only did it have the world’s largest Jewish population, but it had been the first foreign nation to recognize the new State of Israel. (It did so minutes after David Ben-Gurion’s May 14, 1948 proclamation.) As for Sharon, he had a maternal aunt living in New York City. Sharon’s mother had seven siblings, most of whom left their Russian home village at an early age. Sharon visited a maternal uncle in Paris, then friends in London, and then flew to Manhattan to visit his aunt. He was pleased with the United States. This big, broad land and these generous, expansive people seemed like a wonderful change after the hostility he had known throughout his life. Sharon’s aunt taught him to drive, and he enjoyed a long automobile trip through the Southern states before returning to Israel.

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Both men might have guessed that they would fight together in the future, for the security of Israel was far from being assured. In the spring of 1953, Sharon married Gali. Their long courtship had been prolonged by the War of Independence and by her finishing her nursing studies. Sharon left active duty in the Israeli military (which was now called the IDF, “Israeli Defense Forces”) and became a full-time student at the University of Jerusalem. Sharon and Gali bought a house in the Holy City and prepared to live as an urban couple. (Sharon’s parents were distressed, hoping he would return to the family farm). For the first time in life, Sharon felt settled, peaceful, and happy. He might have stayed in that condition for years, and Israeli history might have been rather different, but he was called back to duty in the armed forces in the summer of 1953. The War for Independence was over, but Arab terrorist fighters were carrying out raids into Israel on a regular basis. The regular IDF forces were not trained to respond in kind, so the Israeli high command asked Sharon to form a new military unit called Commando 101. He relished the idea.

DESERT TRAINING In 1953, Sharon trained his elite group of commandos. They were small in number, about 40, but fierce in dedication and discipline. They were not smartly uniformed or well dressed; instead, they saw themselves as irregular desert fighters who would beat the Arabs at their own game. Sharon proved a masterful trainer: He had his men walk through the desert on long night marches, and he pushed their physical

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Moshe Dayan, former Israeli chief of staff of the armed forces, as well as Israel’s most noted military official is photographed in 1954. In 1940, during World War II, Dayan lost his left eye in a battle against Vichy forces in Syria. His black eye patch became Dayan’s trademark.

commando and paratrooper endurance to the point where they became superbly conditioned. Around this time, Sharon received a new commanding officer, Moshe Dayan. Dayan was on his way to becoming the most celebrated of all Israeli military leaders. He saw great qualities in Sharon— strength and willingness to take risks—and he encouraged them. In 1954, Dayan merged Commando Unit 101 with the small group of Israeli paratroopers. Together, the reformed unit became Commando 202. Sharon did not know—could not have known—how long his career would be enmeshed with that of Moshe Dayan. Both men might have guessed, however, that they would fight together in the future, for the security of Israel was far from being assured.

MAN WITH THE EYE PATCH Seldom has any one man so symbolized a nation or a people. If David Ben-Gurion was the political will of Israel—its George Washington—then Moshe Dayan was the country’s first great military leader—its Robert E. Lee. Dayan and Sharon were alike in many ways. Thirteen years the elder, Dayan was also born on a cooperative farm, and both were sabras—the founding generation of Israel. Like Sharon, Dayan was of Russian Jewish heritage. There, however, the similarities stopped. Sharon was almost always “hot,” eager, willing, and raring to go. Dayan, for all his internal boldness, was “cool,” looking for the right moment, carefully assessing his adversary. Sharon and Dayan competed in some war games during the 1950s. They were both intensely competitive, but Dayan was better at controlling his emotions and appearing to be in control. The two worked together very well in the 1950s and 1960s. Dayan, the man with the eye patch (the result of a wound received in 1940), was the symbol of Israeli military

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ariel sharon intelligence, and Sharon, the man with the head bandage (for a wound in the 1973 war), was the symbol of Israeli aggressiveness on the battlefield. Both men also entered politics: Dayan became the country’s first minister of agriculture and then, later, minister of defense. Moshe Dayan died in 1981.

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Tank Commander Ariel Sharon has often been compared to U.S. General George

Patton. The comparison breaks down at times, because of differences in their backgrounds (Patton was a Southern aristocrat, whereas Sharon was a hardscrabble farmer), but it holds up nicely where military strategy is concerned. Patton was the first American commander to fully appreciate how devastating a weapon the modern tank could be. He used tanks against the Nazi Germans in World War II, and Ariel Sharon used them to their maximum effect against the Arabs.

THE SUEZ WAR OF 1956 Sharon and his paratroopers and commandos had already proven their worth by 1956. Moshe Dayan sent them on several missions of revenge: They entered Jordanian and Egyptian territory to kill terrorists. (Whether these men were “terrorists” or “freedom fighters” cannot be defined to anyone’s satisfaction.) 39

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Israeli forces line the streets of Gaza on November 2, 1956, a few days after the city was captured. U.S. officials were adamantly against the attack and ordered Israel to vacate Egyptian territory.

Sharon was accused of excessive violence on one occasion, during the attack on the Jordanian village of Kibbya, where more than 60 civilians (many women and children) were killed. Sharon later claimed he had not known of the danger to civilian lives. The reason Sharon remained in command, and was

tank commander practically invulnerable to his critics, was that he had gained the ear and approval of David Ben-Gurion. The “grand old man,” as people called him, had already become a legend in his own time. Ben-Gurion’s mop of white hair and earnest, sometimes grim, expression had become trademarks by 1956, the year of the Suez War. In his old age, Ben-Gurion showed a definite preference for aggressive young officers, and Ariel Sharon fit the bill. At some times during the 1950s, Ben-Gurion had Sharon sit next to him at military meetings, elevating him over more senior officers, who were, predictably, furious. Sharon played no part in the planning of the 1956 war, but he was given a major role in its execution. In 1956, Egyptian president Nasser appeared to be the most potent threat to Israel. A bold, charismatic man, Nasser called for pan-Arab unity, and for the destruction of the Jewish state. Nasser built up the Egyptian military with aid and advice from the Soviet Union. He had initially been open to assistance from either one of the great superpowers, but the United States was distrustful of his type of leadership. In July 1956, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which runs from the southern Mediterranean to the Red Sea. This meant that Egypt would control the canal and receive its revenues. Immediately, Britain, France, and Israel planned to strike at Nasser. These three were an unlikely—some would say “unholy”— alliance. Israeli Jews distrusted the British because of their former mandate over Palestine, and the feeling was mutual. All three nations wanted to humble Nasser, though, and with the leadership of Moshe Dayan as the intermediary, they agreed on a bold plan. Israel would strike at Egypt first, without warning. When its troops came close to the Suez Canal, Britain and France would issue an international call for both countries to step back from the fight. When Nasser (as they expected) refused, Britain and

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ariel sharon France would enter the fight, bombing the Egyptian airfields. This was a cynical plan, cooked up by people who wanted to continue the era of imperialism. The plan worked in its execution but failed in its design. Colonel Sharon got the go-ahead on October 28, 1956. He led a brigade of Israeli tanks against Egyptian forces in the Sinai Desert. Paratroopers from his brigade had already been dropped at the east side of the Mitla Pass, in the eastern section of the Sinai Peninsula. Sharon’s task was to get to those paratroopers, and, with them, to secure the eastern part of the pass. Sharon moved with great speed and alacrity. With this kind of tank warfare and rapid movement, he was at his best. He never claimed George Patton, or anyone else, as an inspiration: He acted as if this lightning-style warfare was his own design. In just 24 hours, Sharon blasted his way through the Egyptian defenders, went around their rear, and arrived at the Mitla Pass. It was a striking achievement. Now was the time to consolidate. Sharon knew the Egyptian Air Force posed a danger; it had bases in the Peninsula. His instincts were always “go,” though, and never “on hold,” so he soon petitioned Moshe Dayan, commanding general, to let him enter the 20-mile (32-km) -deep Mitla Pass. So concerned was Moshe Dayan that he sent another officer by light plane to Sharon’s location. Under no circumstance was Sharon to enter the pass or start a battle. His was a holding position; the Israelis were now waiting for the British and French to enter the war. Sharon wangled a little bit of an opening from the visiting officer. Promising he would only use them for reconnaissance, Sharon sent the vanguard of his troops into the pass. There, they ran smack into an Egyptian infantry battalion that had used the rocks and shrubs for cover. Remaining in the rear, on the east side of the pass, Sharon sent orders forward. His men persevered: Although it took a full 24 hours, they routed the Egyptians. The Israeli loss was heavy, however—38 killed and many more wounded.

tank commander Moshe Dayan was absolutely furious. So were some of Sharon’s lieutenants and captains, who claimed he had led them into unnecessary danger. Even worse, from the Israeli point of view, he had not led, but had commanded from the rear. This was a distinctly un-Israeli style of leadership; the entire IDF prided itself on commanders shouting “follow me!” not “charge!” To come into such conflict with Moshe Dayan was tantamount to risking his entire military career. Sharon asked for a meeting with Dayan, with David Ben-Gurion present. The three men met back home in Israel, and the result was a standoff. Sharon certainly came off looking poorly, but David BenGurion refused to adjudicate the dispute, and Moshe Dayan came just short of dismissing Sharon from his command. As it turned out, this was a narrow escape. Israel, too, had a narrow escape from danger. It was not from its Arab foe, but from its best ally, the United States. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was furious that Britain, France, and Israel had used this opportunity to gang up on Egypt—and that they had done so without consulting him. Angry telephone calls were made between Washington, D.C., and Tel Aviv, until Israel agreed to vacate the Sinai Peninsula. All the victories of 1956 were in vain, in that Israel did not crush its Egyptian enemy. In addition, as for Sharon, it looked as if he would never get beyond the rank of colonel, even though he had displayed such remarkable leadership skill in battle.

THE UNITED STATES AND ISRAEL Because they are such formidable partners and allies, one might assume that America and Israel have always been the best of friends. This was not always so. President Harry Truman was the first international leader to recognize Israel, in 1948, but he also agreed to the arms embargo that prevented his government from selling weapons to the Jewish state. Israel fought the 1948 and 1956 wars with its own equipment, or with arms sold by France and Czechoslovakia.

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Under orders from Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion, Ariel Sharon founded and led a special operations unit, called Commando 101. Commando 101 was created in order to retaliate against many Arab attacks on Israelis. Above, Ariel Sharon addresses the infamous Commando 101 on August 30, 1955.

Only during the administration of John F. Kennedy did the United States start sending arms to Israel, and it began with some small shipments. The turning point seems to be the 1967 war, which elicited the admiration of Americans (and millions of other people around the globe). Consequently, from 1967 on, the United States became the principal weapons supplier to Israel.

tank commander At about the same time, the USSR stepped up its shipments to Arab countries such as Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. For some time during the 1970s, it appeared likely that the USSR, United States, or both might be “drawn into” the Arab-Israeli conflicts. Fortunately, this did not happen. Things changed when Israel and Egypt agreed to peace in 1979, however. To keep the peace, the United States agreed to supply Egypt with financial and military aid second only to that which they provided to Israel. By about 1980, the USSR had been edged out of the Middle East competition, with Syria its only remaining client state.

INTERLUDE Soon after the 1956 war, Sharon experienced several life-changing events. On December 27, 1956, his wife, Gali, gave birth to their son, Gur. The couple had been trying to conceive for some time and had nearly given up hope. Just three days later, Sharon’s father died. Samuil Scheinerman was in his sixties and as cantankerous as ever in the hours before his death. On one occasion, he told his son it was a shame he was about to die, because Sharon still needed his help in so many ways. Sharon remembered his incredulous feelings at the time. Here he was, 28, vigorous, and healthy, in the prime of life, and his weak father, near death, was still scolding him and putting him in his place. That had been the theme of their relationship, and Samuil played it till the end. At least Sharon now had his beloved son, Gur. ABROAD From 1957 to 1958, Sharon and his family lived in England. He studied at a British war college but was more interested in the British social life than his studies. Sharon by now was convinced he knew more about modern, tank warfare than almost anyone, and he did not think he could learn much from his British instructors. The year abroad served little

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On January 12, 1969, Ariel Sharon poses with his second wife, Lily, at an army function in Tel Aviv, Israel. Lily was the sister of Sharon’s first wife, Gali, who died in a tragic car accident in 1962.

tank commander purpose except to keep Sharon away from Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan, whose anger over the 1956 insubordination gradually cooled. When he returned home in 1958, Sharon continued in the IDF, working slowly but surely up the ranks. He kept a lower profile than before, and the new decade began as a quiet one. The tragic death of Sharon’s wife, Gali, in May 1962, changed all that. Gali was driving a car the family had brought from England, one in which the driver sat on the right. Israeli cars were designed with the driver on the left. This difference contributed to the accident in which Gali was killed. Sharon hastened to the scene, but there was nothing he could do. Days later, he buried Gali at a military cemetery. After the service, he vowed to protect their six-year-old son: This would be his new mission in life.

MARRIAGE AGAIN Sharon married for a second time about 14 months after Gali’s death. His new wife, Lily Zimmerman, was Gali’s younger sister. Lily had moved to Israel as a teenager and had lived with the Sharon family for some time. She had also served in the IDF paratroopers and had briefly been under Sharon’s command. Whether there was anything to the rumors that Sharon had been carrying on an affair with Lily while married to Gali is hard to say; what is certain is that a close relationship developed soon after Gali’s death. Sharon cited Gur’s need for a mother as his reason for marriage to Lily.

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Political Beginnings By 1967, Sharon had grown cynical about his army career. He had

served a total of 20 years, and it seemed he would never have a chance to shine. He was promoted to major general in 1965, by Yitzhak Rabin. In times of peace, however, it seemed Sharon would never attain his grandest ambition—to be chief of staff for the IDF. Then, in June 1967, Sharon received his big breakthrough.

THE SIX-DAY WAR Many books and articles have been written about the Six-Day War, which stands as the single most decisive military campaign of modern times. No one has ever completely unraveled the mystery of how Israel crushed her Arab neighbors so rapidly. Israel started the war. On June 5, 1967, 300 Israeli airplanes took off from home bases and attacked Egyptian and Syrian

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political beginnings planes on the ground. In three hours, the Arabs lost about 80 percent of their fighters. Israel then attacked on the ground. Sharon was, naturally, part of the big push in the Sinai Peninsula. He knew this ground as if it were his own, having fought on it in 1956, farmed close to it, and gone over maps and plans a hundred times in preparation for this moment. Now that the IDF had complete control of the skies, Sharon and his tanks practically drove through their Egyptian foes, hastening to the two key passes—the Mitla and Gidi—at the eastern side of the peninsula. Sharon got to the Mitla Pass, the scene of his great mistake back in 1956, and found the Egyptian forces there practically destroyed by Israeli attacks from the air. The carnage was terrible: Men and material were strewn about the pass in a horrific scene of death and destruction. Along the way, Sharon had met and wiped out a force of about 1,000 Egyptians. The Six-Day War was soon over. Sharon and other Israeli units reached the eastern side of the Suez Canal and looked across at Egypt. They had no real wish to cross and invade the Egyptian homeland, but it certainly was possible at that moment. Meanwhile, other Israeli forces had defeated the Jordanians and captured the whole of the city of Jerusalem, including the famous Temple Mount, which would later figure in Sharon’s life and career. Still other Israelis had taken the fight to the Syrians. Attacking in force, the Israelis captured the whole of the Golan Heights and were practically on the way to Damascus when a cease-fire went into effect. Through the efforts of Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, and others, Israel virtually tripled in size during the Six-Day War.

THE WAR OF ATTRITION Everyone—from Israelis to Americans to Europeans—believed that the Arab nations would now seek peace. Israel had shown

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Israeli army tanks are photographed on the third day of the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The war began when Israel launched a preemptive strike against Egypt fearing an imminent attack. For the next six days Israel fought against Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, and Jordanian forces. As a result of the war, Israel won control of the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula, and the West Bank.

its strength so decisively that it seemed foolhardy to continue any sort of contest. Israelis were especially jubilant. They flocked in great numbers to visit the Old City of Jerusalem, which had been denied to them by Jordan for the past 30 years. The Arabs did not seek peace, however. Instead, the major Arab leaders met

political beginnings later that year and announced their adherence to the “Three No’s”—no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no diplomatic relations with Israel. Many observers felt that the Arabs were hiding their heads in the sand and that they would eventually have to come to terms, but they did not understand the Arab mentality on this matter. In his book Fratricide in the Holy Land: A Psychoanalytic View of the Arab–Israeli Conflict, psychoanalytic historian Avner Falk explains his view: To lessen the burning pain of what they felt to be their shaming and humiliation by the Jews, the Arabs of Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon have talked themselves into believing that it was not the weak and cowardly Israelis who had defeated them but the mighty Americans, and that the Israelis would last no longer than the medieval Crusaders and their Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, established in 1099 and defeated in 1187 by the Kurdish Muslim leader Salah ad Din Yusuf iby-Ayyub, known to Westerners as Saladin.

As with most distortions, there was a kernel of truth contained within the mistake. The United States did back Israel; there was a tremendous wellspring of goodwill toward Israel among the American people. The military victories of 1967 were won by Israelis driving their own tanks and flying their own planes, however. They showed themselves to be superior at the mix of technological and human skill that makes for successful modern warfare. It would take another war to bring the Arabs and Jews to the peace table.

TRAGEDY The greatest tragedy of Sharon’s life took place that October. Just four months after his victories in the Sinai Peninsula, Sharon was in his house and his son, Gur, was out back playing with a friend. Suddenly, Sharon heard a shot fired; he dashed to the back and found his son mortally wounded. The two boys

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ariel sharon had taken one of Sharon’s own rifles from the house and took turns playfully aiming it at one another. The gun had gone off, killing Gur. Sharon lost his beloved son at the age of 11. Losing Gali in 1962 had been bad enough, but losing his son, at such a young age, was simply devastating. Sharon reproached himself time and again for his lack of caution, but he also took things out on his former son’s playmate. Sharon harassed the boy and his family until they picked up and left the neighborhood.

THE YOM KIPPUR WAR Sharon’s daring crossing of the Suez Canal in October 1973 has already been covered, but something must be said about the Yom Kippur War, in terms of strategy and impact. The war began when Egypt and Syria made simultaneous attacks on the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights, both of which Israel had captured in the Six-Day War. The two Arab armies (Jordan stayed out of this war) made considerable progress in the first few days, leading some observers to question what had been the implicit belief in Israeli military superiority. Something had indeed changed. The Arabs fought more skillfully and with more tenacity than in the past. The Israelis fought back on the Golan Heights, however, and within 10 days they had pushed the Syrians off that all-important high ground. Meanwhile, the Israelis stayed on the defensive on the Sinai until October 15, when Sharon led his division of tanks and troops to the Suez Canal. Sharon pulled off a remarkable feat, crossing the canal and catching the Egyptians unaware. When the Yom Kippur War ended, 17 days after it began, the Israelis had pushed a little bit into Syria—having retaken all the Golan Heights— and Sharon’s men had taken up positions on the western side of the Canal, completely surrounding the Egyptian Third Army. Sharon’s active-duty military service ended shortly afterward, in January 1974. He retired as a lieutenant general, at the age of 45.

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The ruins of Quneitra, the abandoned former capital of Golan Heights, are shown above. Israel gained control of Golan Heights following the Six Day War of 1967. It has been argued that Israel destroyed Quneitra before Syrians regained control of the city in 1974. Israelis argue that the Syrian military is responsible for its destruction.

ENTERING POLITICS In the months just prior to the Yom Kippur War, Sharon made a new political alliance. He befriended Menachem Begin, leader of the right-wing Heirut Party, which had been in opposition to the ruling Labor government for the previous 25 years. The two men were very different, both in character and in style, but they had some common familial history that helped them create a political alliance. (Sharon’s paternal grandmother

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ariel sharon had been the midwife at Menachem Begin’s birth in Russia.) During 1973, Sharon helped form the new Likud (“Unity”) Party that joined together the different right-wing opponents to the Labor Party. Sharon won election to the Knesset in the December 1973 elections, but the Likud Party did not win a majority. Labor continued as the ruling party, with former chief of staff Yitzhak Rabin replacing Golda Meir as prime minister. Sharon did not enjoy life in the Knesset. He was accustomed to giving orders and having them followed, but other Knesset deputies had to be persuaded and cajoled. Sharon was less effective than he had hoped, and within a year he resigned his seat to devote himself to running his new ranch, Sycamore Farm, in the Negev Desert, full time. Lily had become a powerful influence in her husband’s life. She helped persuade him to enter politics and to leave politics for the farm. Sharon had always done hard physical work, and he enjoyed bossing his workers on the ranch. At 46, he seemed like he was truly retired. But the appearance was deceptive.

YITZHAK RABIN Born in Jerusalem in 1922, Rabin was six years older than Sharon. The two men had many similar experiences in life, with one major exception. Sharon grew up on a farm, whereas throughout his life Rabin was an urbanite. Rabin was a shining example of the new sabra mentality in early Israel. Handsome and light on his feet, he could have been something of an idol in his youth, but he was too shy to capitalize on his good looks. Therefore, the image most people hold is that of the elderly, craggy, but lovable Rabin—a man of great integrity. Rabin rose to chief of staff, and in 1965 he promoted Sharon. Rabin became prime minister of Israel in 1974, and he kept Sharon as his special consultant on military matters. Different as the two were in temperament, they thought alike

political beginnings on matters of national security. Both of them had an instinctive, “go for the jugular” approach to warfare. Rabin was forced to resign as prime minister in 1977 because of a scandal involving a bank account he maintained in Washington, D.C. He was out of the political limelight for many years, but he returned in 1992 to serve once again as prime minister. This led to his bright and shining moment, when he agreed to the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

A PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY Israel is a parliamentary democracy, meaning that its form of government is much closer to that of Canada or the United Kingdom than to that of the United States. The Israeli Knesset (or “Parliament”) was first formed in 1950. Based in Jerusalem, the Knesset expresses the will of the Israeli people, whereas the prime minister and his cabinet, formed from a majority of deputies in the Knesset, run the day-to-day business of government. For the first 50 years, Israelis voted in two separate elections, one for the members of the Knesset and another for the different political parties. Starting in 1998, however, Israelis began to vote in one, unified election. The nature of Israeli politics and society has meant that no one party wins an outright majority of seats in the Knesset (Labor was the exception to the rule). Since about 1977, every Israeli government has been a coalition of different political parties, with one, usually Likud, forming the center of the bloc. One could argue that this splintered, fragmented type of government coalition meant it was easier for a maverick like Sharon to work his way up the political ranks.

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The Lebanon Disaster In May 1977, Menachem Begin’s Likud Party, which was really a

coalition of smaller parties, won the Israeli parliamentary elections. For the first time since 1950, the Labor Party was out of power. Sharon and Menachem Begin had been political allies since 1973, but Sharon had dropped out of political life in 1974. He played no role in Begin’s election victory in 1977 and wondered if he could ever find his way back to good grace within the Likud. The answer came during a short telephone call to Menachem Begin: He was in and would be offered the job of minister of agriculture. Sharon had hoped to become minister of defense, but he accepted his new position with pride. As he was sworn in, he remembered his father’s relationship with the land, and his own new farm in the Negev Desert. He was a man of the soil, and he would bring a fierce commitment to his new job.

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Begin had been a terrorist in the 1940s. If ever there was a hard-liner, it was Begin. BEGIN AND SADAT When he came to power in 1977, Menachem Begin acted in a way that made people suspicious, even fearful. He wore dark glasses, frowned often, and seemed like an immovable object in Israeli politics. Begin had been a terrorist in the 1940s; men under his leadership had blown up Jerusalem’s King David Hotel in 1946 to force the British out of Palestine. If ever there was a hard-liner, it was Begin. Just as the hard-liner Richard Nixon was able to establish American diplomatic relations with Communist China, the former terrorist Begin was able to start a peace process with Egypt. Within four months of coming into office, Begin had established a long-distance relationship with Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, and the world was amazed when Sadat flew to Jerusalem in November 1977. Begin and Sadat, backed up by their respective chiefs of staff, were able to come to agreement on a basic formula: “land for peace.” Israel would slowly return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, which would become a friend and peace partner with the Jewish state. It took another year, and some arm-twisting from American president Jimmy Carter, but in February 1978, Begin and Sadat signed the famous Camp David Accords, just outside of Washington, D.C. Peace had been established between Israel and an Arab state for the first time ever, and it had been done by a former hard-liner. As some said, Begin was an extremely hard man to come to agreement with; he would fight over every letter and sentence in the document; but once it was signed, he would execute every letter, cross every t, and dot every i. This proved to be the case in Begin’s relationship with Egypt.

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On December 18, 1977, Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin appears on CBS’s “Face the Nation” in Washington, D.C. Begin is most remembered for his signing of the Camp David Accords with Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. The Camp David Accords was a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.

THE SETTLEMENTS As minister of agriculture, Sharon had a number of duties. He was to inspect crops, monitor the success or failure of each group, and make recommendations about future growing seasons. Sharon did all this, and he did it rather well, too. He was most concerned, however, with having new Jewish settlements built in the occupied territories.

the lebanon disaster Israelis had ambivalent feelings about the lands they had conquered in the Six-Day War. Some Israelis saw these lands as bargaining chips, to be used in future “land for peace” settlements with neighboring Arab countries, while others saw them as millstones around the neck of the nation. Menachem Begin was willing to deal with Anwar Sadat and to trade away the whole Sinai Peninsula in return for peace. He felt very differently, though, about the “West Bank,” the land between the Jordan River and the original 1948 boundary between Israel and the Palestinians. To Begin, the West Bank was Judea and Samaria from the Old Testament, and Israelis had a covenanted right to those lands. Ariel Sharon was not nearly as religious as Menachem Begin, but he agreed with his boss for reasons of his own. Sharon was not concerned with the Judea and Samaria argument; he wanted the West Bank as a permanent buffer between Israel and Jordan, because he feared future terrorist attacks (Sharon had fought along that border, as a commando, in 1953–1955). Though he and his prime minister had different reasons, they saw alike on the matter of the West Bank. Sharon started encouraging agricultural settlements on the high ground sections of the region. By now, Sharon had many nicknames. He was “Arik, King of Israel.” He was “Sharon the bulldozer,” so named because he used bulldozers to knock down Arab settlements and then build Jewish ones. There were many other colorful and indecorous nicknames about his weight, which increasingly became the butt of Israeli jokes. Truly, he seemed to expand all the time. Sharon had always been a big eater, but he had also been a very active man. He continued to move well and often, but his bulk gradually crept up on him. Compared to the prime minister, who led an austere lifestyle, Sharon seemed like the embodiment of an Israeli hedonist. Sharon stood out because most of the men with whom he had served in the army (Yitzhak Rabin and Moshe Dayan, for example) remained fit and trim well into retirement.

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ariel sharon By 1981, Sharon had contributed to the building of more than 40 Israeli settlements in the West Bank. There were protests, especially from abroad, but neither the minister of agriculture nor the prime minister paid much attention. They were certain they were on the right course; the West Bank had to be secured for future generations of Israeli Jews. What they overlooked, though—and the mistake is understandable—was that the Arab population would grow much faster than the Israeli one, and that keeping the West Bank might eventually become a liability from a demographic point of view. All these concerns, however, paled beside that of Lebanon and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

ARAFAT AND THE PLO Born in Cairo in 1929, Yasser Arafat was one year younger than Sharon. His family moved to Jerusalem when he was a boy, and he came first to identify with, and then to personify, the Palestinian desire for a homeland. Arafat and others pointed out that the deprivation of the Palestinians was one of the tragedies of the twentieth century. Arafat himself did not take the road of diplomacy or statecraft; however. Instead, he became the world’s best-known terrorist. Arafat formed Al-Fatah in the 1950s and the PLO in the 1960s. Both organizations spoke loudly and often of Palestinian human rights, but they also formed terrorist cells that attacked innocent Israeli citizens. One of their most horrific attacks came at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, where 11 Israeli athletes were killed. By 1981, the year Sharon became Israel’s defense minister, Arafat and his PLO fighters lived in southern and central Lebanon, where they launched many terrorist attacks against northern Israel. The PLO was less successful in infiltrating Israel than in the past, but it had practically become a state within the state of Lebanon, and Ariel Sharon was determined to chase it out.

the lebanon disaster ISRAEL’S UNNECESSARY WAR Though some people thought Israel had become too militaristic, everyone agreed that the country had been forced, by circumstances, to fight the wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. The same was not true of Lebanon in 1982. In August 1981, Menachem Begin promoted Sharon from minister of agriculture to minister of defense. This was the summit of his ambitions, something to which he had aspired for a very long time. His old colleague Moshe Dayan, who died that year, had followed the same career path: from soldier, to officer, to minister of agriculture, and then to minister of defense. Almost as soon as he took his new position, Sharon prepared for a war with the Palestinian Liberation Organization, better known as the PLO. Sharon went to Washington, D.C., to meet members of Ronald Reagan’s administration. U.S. secretary of state Alexander Haig, a former military man, was sympathetic to Sharon’s plans to chase the PLO out of Lebanon. The Reagan administration made no formal statement on the matter, but Sharon returned to Israel with the belief that the United States would look the other way if an invasion occurred. In the spring of 1982, Sharon presented his plan to Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the rest of the cabinet. Sharon pledged his intention to invade Lebanon to a depth of about 27 miles (40 km), to force the PLO so far north that they could not send rockets or missiles into Israel proper. As it turned out, Sharon actually had more ambitious plans, but he kept these to himself. Israel invaded southern Lebanon on June 6, 1982. Sharon ran the entire operation. He was in his glory, attending to every detail, and briefing the Israeli press corps. Using an officer’s stick, he pointed to the map and showed the limited objectives of the campaign, which was called Operation Galilee (to keep the Sea of Galilee safe from PLO missiles). Everything went well for three days, until Israeli units started clashing with Syrians.

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Israeli defense minister Ariel Sharon presents the objectives of Israel’s Peace for Galilee military campaign at a press conference in Tel Aviv on June 11, 1982. Operation Peace for Galilee began with the invasion of southern Lebanon, under the direction of Ariel Sharon. The invasion was a response to an assassination attempt made on Israeli ambassador Shlomo Argov.

(Syria had sent part of its army into war-torn Lebanon a few years earlier.) Sharon asked for permission to bomb the Syrians, without causing a full-fledged war. The cabinet agreed, and in the course of a day, IDF planes identified and destroyed about 20 surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries. These missiles had

the lebanon disaster caused the Israeli Air Force grief during the Yom Kippur War, but Israeli technicians found how to “jam” the signals received by the battery operators: Once their fire exposed their locations, the Israeli planes came in to finish the job. Luckily, the attacks on the SAM batteries did not start a new war with Syria. Instead, the Israelis were able to sweep north and west, heading toward the Lebanese capital of Beirut. No Middle Eastern city had suffered more in recent years. A civil war between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon in 1975 caused thousands of civilian casualties. As Sharon’s IDF pressed them more daily, the PLO fighters began abandoning their places in southern Lebanon and fleeing to Beirut. Perhaps they hoped the war-torn city would offer them some safety from Israeli planes, but they misjudged Sharon. Sharon wanted the PLO out of Lebanon. He wanted a victory so crushing that he would not have to fight the PLO or the Syrians again. He had the Israeli Air Force bomb Beirut, while his infantry set up heavy artillery and bombarded from a safe distance. The city that had gone through seven years of agony was about to see the culmination of all its worst fears. (It was about this time that “Beirut” became a by-word for a shattered or broken place.) Prime Minister Menachem Begin received angry calls from U.S. president Ronald Reagan, who wanted the bombing and artillery fire stopped. Most Israeli prime ministers were deferential to American presidents, but Begin was both stubborn and short-sighted in this instance. Refusing to accept American pressure, he gave Sharon a green light to continue the campaign, even though it had gone well beyond the original limit of 40 kilometers (27 miles). During July and early August, Beirut was a tinderbox. Bombs were dropped, shells exploded, and no one was safe. The international community wanted to save what was left of the city, so an agreement was reached under which Yasser Arafat and the PLO fighters would be allowed to leave. They

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ariel sharon would surrender their arms, and be transported to whatever country would accept them (many refused before Tunisia agreed). The crisis seemed to be over. Yasser Arafat boarded a ship on August 30, 1982. He waved enthusiastically to the crowd, as if he had won a victory, although he was in fact being exiled from his headquarters. Sharon and the IDF stayed on the outskirts of the city while the PLO was evacuated. About 11,000 PLO fighters lived to fight another day. Two weeks passed. Then, on September 14, Bashir Gemayel, a Christian politician who had recently been elected as the president of Lebanon, was killed in an explosion inside Beirut (years later, it was determined that a Syrian had done the deed). Suddenly, all of Sharon’s careful plans went up in smoke.

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On the Margins Bashir Gemayel was assassinated on September 14, 1982. Two days

later, Sharon and the IDF allowed Christian Lebanese militia fighters to enter two Palestinian refugee camps in south-central Beirut. The names Sabra and Shatila were about to enter the history books. About 200 Christian militia members entered the camps that night and proceeded to slaughter everyone they met. Incensed by the murder of their leader, the Christian militia killed men, women, and children, and did unspeakable things to their bodies. The two-day massacre was one of the most horrific events of modern times, and much of it was recorded by television cameras and international journalists. Outrage was heard in Washington, D.C., in Paris, in London, and in Rome. It was also heard in Tel Aviv, where 400,000 Israelis gathered to protest this increasingly unpopular war. Anyone with a sharp eye for public opinion could see that this was a

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A Palestinian woman holds helmets during a memorial service for victims of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacre, on September 27, 1982. The woman claimed that the Christian Lebanese militia wore the helmets when killing members of the refugee camps.

disaster of the first magnitude. Sharon came to the Knesset, however, to defend his decisions before Israel’s elected leaders. World opinion turned against Israel in general and Sharon in particular. Time magazine put a weary-looking Sharon on its cover and entitled the article: “Israel: A Shaken Nation.” Plenty of Israelis also turned against the general who had been such a hero in 1967 and 1973. Political leaders in the Knesset called the massacres at Sabra and Shatila a grave moral crisis, for it

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“In our view, the Minister of Defense made a grave mistake when he ignored the danger of acts of revenge and bloodshed.” seemed as if Israel was abandoning its solemn commitment not to abuse people, as Jews had been abused in the past. Prime Minister Begin turned a blind eye to the protests. On one occasion, he said that goyim (“non-Jews”) were slaughtering goyim, and that everyone was blaming the Jews for it. For once, Begin did not escape. Public opinion turned against him, his government, and Sharon. Much against his will, Begin authorized a formal investigation by leading Israeli jurists. The September 20, 1982, issue of Time magazine described Sharon’s entrance to the Knesset: No one approached Sharon, no one spoke to him. Sharon sat impassively as Opposition leader Shimon Peres bitterly attacked the government, addressing many of his remarks directly to Begin and Sharon, saying, “The Defense Minister’s rotund body swayed as he approached the podium to answer. ‘It is a dark day for all of us,’ he said. A Communist Party member shouted ‘Who sent the murderers? Who sent the murderers?”

Sharon explained that he and his fellow leaders had never dreamed that such a massacre of innocents would happen in Beirut. He admitted, however, that his forces had helped the Christian militia plan their operation and allowed them to enter Sabra and Shatila. It was a dark day indeed.

THE KAHAN REPORT The Kahan commission released its report on February 8, 1983. The commission members explained the events of Sabra and

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ariel sharon Shatila in detail and mentioned that they had examined more than 60 witnesses (Sharon among them). They had this to say about Sharon’s role: The Phalangists were liable to commit atrocities and that it was necessary to forestall this possibility as a humanitarian obligation and also to prevent the political damage it would entail. From the Defense Minister [Sharon] himself we know that this consideration did not concern him in the least. . . . In our view, the Minister of Defense made a grave mistake when he ignored the danger of acts of revenge and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population in the refugee camps.9

The Kahan commission concluded that both Prime Minister Begin and Defense Minister Sharon bore “indirect” responsibility for the horrors of September 16–18, 1982. Days later, the Israeli cabinet voted 16–1, to accept the Kahan Report, with Sharon casting the only negative vote. A photograph showed a grim Menachem Begin voting with the majority. Sharon had to step down as minister of defense, but he was allowed to remain as a minister “without portfolio,” which everyone suspected would not be to his liking. How he had fallen, both in the estimation of the public and in the power of his position! No one who saw Sharon that day—or that week—would have expected he would one day come out from the political wilderness and become the eleventh prime minister of Israel. Such are the fortunes of politics.

THE LIBEL SUIT Typically, Sharon did not back down. He asserted, loudly and often, that he had done nothing wrong, that he was the victim of a conspiracy to remove him from office. (In a speech to the Knesset, he hinted darkly at American motives in his fall from grace.) Sharon seemed incapable of realizing that

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Israel’s uncertain role in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacre led to the removal of Ariel Sharon as defense minister. In the photograph above, Prime Minister Menachem Begin (left) votes in allegiance with the majority to oust Ariel Sharon (center) on February 14, 1983. The Israeli cabinet voted 16–1 in support of Sharon’s removal from office.

his actions had brought him to this place. Lacking anyone he could “hit” in Israel, he took on Time magazine, which had published a number of articles on Sabra, Shatila, and his role in the affair. To go after Time seemed like the height of folly. In 1983, Time had an unblemished reputation for accuracy and fairness in reporting. (This reputation suffered a fair deal over the next

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ariel sharon two decades.) Time also had a battery of lawyers, who could keep Sharon tied up for years in court. Typically, he charged headlong into combat. Selling his house in Jerusalem—the one he and Gali had purchased back in 1953—Sharon traveled to New York City and hired a prominent attorney, who persuaded him to sue for a total of $50 million. (Anything less, the lawyer argued, would not frighten the opposition into taking the matter seriously.) Sharon, Lily, and their youngest son stayed in New York for most of the next year, while Sharon continued to hold a cabinet position back home. He received no criticism for this; his fellow Israeli politicians were delighted to have him out of the country for a time. Sharon’s lawyers put Time journalist David Halevy on the stand. Born in Israel, Halevy had served in three of the ArabIsraeli wars before becoming a journalist. Halevy knew a great deal about Israel, but he seems to have fabricated some of his sources for the report in February 1983. There were times when Halevy seemed to be coming apart on the witness stand. At first, journalists from all areas in America backed Time. This was one of the first, and most sensational, of all libel cases against a major news magazine, and American journalists wanted to defend their own. As the case continued into December 1984, however, credibility gaps emerged in the record. How could Time’s reporters have “known” that Sharon gave a green light to the Lebanese Christian militia? Had they been there at the time? Apparently they were not. A major book came out two years later, written by Sharon’s press officer, Dan Uri, who had been at the meeting between Sharon and the Christian leaders in 1982, just one day before the Christian militia entered the refugee camps. Referring to those who said Sharon had encouraged the Christians to carry out their terrible slaughter, Uri said:

on the margins All the Israeli representatives—all of them senior officials— heard Sharon’s words, as I did. We heard every syllable of his conversation in this closed group with Pierre Gemayel. And none of us, other than the translator, said a word. Revenge or anything remotely resembling it was never mentioned. There were no ambiguous movements of body or hand—from Sharon, from Pierre, or from Amin Gemayel.

The question of body or hand movements came up at the trial. Witnesses for Time were grilled over their belief that Sharon had somehow used body language to convey that he approved of the Christian militia taking revenge for the death of the Lebanese leader. Sharon staked everything he had on the Time trial. The results came in during January 1985. On the first count, the charge that Time had defamed Sharon’s character, the jury of six decided that Time was guilty. A full week passed before the jury rendered its decision on the second charge. The jury decided that Time had misrepresented the facts. Sharon was jubilant, but he still had a week to wait before the third and most important verdict was handed down. In the mean time he savored articles like this one in the New York Post: Ariel Sharon, a general who has fought so many wars and skirmishes he cannot count them, got that taste yesterday when a jury handed him a significant first triumph in a $50 million libel campaign against Time Magazine. . . . He came to New York a solitary figure in a business suit with no marching columns to back him, only a ferocious pride, to do battle against a publishing empire with inexhaustible funds and resources. . . . A foreigner, Sharon was striking into the enemy’s very own territory, which itself was fortified by the First Amendment.

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On February 21, 1983, Time magazine published an article alleging that Ariel Sharon was responsible for the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. In response to this allegation, Sharon filed a libel suit for defamation of character against Time magazine. On January 1985, Time magazine was found guilty of misrepresenting facts.

on the margins Then came the third and final verdict. Sharon and his lawyers had not passed the high bar of proving reckless disregard on the part of Time magazine. There would no payment of any kind, much less one of $50 million. Sharon, Lily, and their son went home to Israel, with their heads held high. If they had not succeeded in total, they had come a long way toward restoring Sharon’s international reputation.

STILL IN THE WILDERNESS By the end of the libel suit, Sharon had a better reputation in the United States than he did in his homeland. Starting in 1985, he went into the political wilderness, something that did not change for many years. To a younger generation of Israelis, he seemed irrelevant, a worthy old fighter who had shown his political ineptitude in the Lebanon disaster, which did not fully end until the last Israeli soldier was withdrawn in 2000. Sharon did not appear to mind. He spent most of his time on his beloved Sycamore Farm in the Negev Desert. He experimented with different types of crops and made a good living. Those who knew him best believed he hoped for a political comeback some day, but that seemed most unlikely. A new generation of Israeli leaders was even about to begin to negotiate with the PLO, something Sharon had vowed never to do. THE FIRST INTIFADA People who follow Middle Eastern affairs often joke that the time to expect a war is when the powers are planning for peace. The reverse might just as well be accurate. Both possibilities became more acute in the late 1980s, an especially tense time in Middle Eastern politics. In December 1987, the First Intifada broke out. This was a spontaneous uprising by the Palestinians on the Gaza Strip

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ariel sharon and the West Bank. The Palestinians had no major weapons with which to threaten the Israelis, so they used stones and rocks. Television images showed young Palestinians daring the Israelis, who seemed quite safe inside their tanks and armored vehicles. At almost the same time, however, a major diplomatic breakthrough took place. Yasser Arafat was still alive and well in 1988—six years after Sharon ejected him from Lebanon— and that year he announced his willingness to recognize Israel and conduct diplomatic relations with its government. Many Israelis and Palestinians had never believed this would happen. Suddenly, the terrorist seemed to turn statesman, and the world waited with great hope for what might be a major breakthrough in Arab–Israeli relations. If anything, Sharon seemed more passé than ever.

C H A P T E R

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Failed Peace One of the most important episodes for people who follow events

in the Middle East took place on September 13, 1993, when Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn. People noticed that Rabin hesitated; he did not wish to shake the hand that had commissioned so many terrorist attacks on Israel. He overcame his objections, however, and shook anyway. It was a moment of great hope. U.S. president Bill Clinton watched with great satisfaction as the two men shared that handshake. Clinton saw himself as the Jimmy Carter of his time, the man who would bring formerly deadly foes together as friends. Clinton was not only ambitious, but also he was highly intelligent. He knew as much about the Middle East conflicts as any world leader of the time. Rabin and Arafat shook hands to commemorate the signing of the Oslo (Norway) Accords between Israel and the renamed Palestinian Authority. Under this set of agreements,

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U.S. president Bill Clinton looks on as Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (left) shakes hands with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat (right) at the signing of the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993, in Washington, D.C. The Oslo Accords were a peace agreement between the two nation states, hoping to end the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel would slowly evacuate the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which would become a new Palestinian homeland. Yasser Arafat returned to Palestine for the first time in many years, as leader of the Palestinian Authority. There were troubles right from the start, but there was also a genuine

failed peace hope among Israelis that this time a durable peace would be established. At this point, Sharon was very much on the sidelines. People still remembered the disastrous war in Lebanon, which did not come to a complete end until 2000, when the last Israeli soldier came home. They also believed that this time of possible peace was the wrong time to have such military men as Sharon in leadership positions. True, Yitzhak Rabin was a former soldier and chief of staff, but he had shown himself to be much more flexible than Sharon. Then came the tragedy of 1995. On a cold autumn night, Yitzhak Rabin led a crowd of more than 100,000 Israelis in songs and speeches about peace. Never had he seemed more at one with the people; never had peace seemed more possible— indeed imminent. As Rabin turned to leave the crowd, however, he was shot dead by a lone gunman. The gunman was not an Arab, not a Palestinian, but a young Israeli who believed Rabin was giving too much away in the peace agreements. Like the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 32 years earlier, the moment of Rabin’s death was seen by all Israelis as an enormous milestone. Not only had Rabin worked hard for peace; he had also been a stalwart in the long fight for Israel’s military survival. Much like Moshe Dayan (who had died in 1981), Rabin exemplified the sabra generation of Israel’s founders. For days after his death, according to writer Oz Almog, Israelis sang a special song in his honor, “Where are there now men like that man?”

CARETAKER GOVERNMENTS The peace process faltered after Rabin’s death, but it did not die. U.S. president Bill Clinton put pressure on Shimon Peres (who immediately succeeded Rabin) and Benjamin Netanyahu (who was elected in 1996). Israelis were uncertain of the future of peace in their country, but they had much else to think about. The Israeli economy boomed in the 1990s. Affiliated

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with American industrialists and financiers, Israel became the second most represented country on the NASDAQ (American stock exchange) technology section of Wall Street. Like their American counterparts, Israeli citizens believed that the sky was the limit. Throughout all of this, Sharon seemed like a has-been. He was entering his seventies, and though he still had plenty of vigor, he moved more slowly than in the past. Then, too, he was about to lose his partner of more than 30 years. Lily Sharon was diagnosed with cancer in the late 1990s. She fought it bravely and stoically, continuing to put the needs of others ahead of her own. A warrior to the end, Lily was quite a bit like the husband she adored. She died in March 2000. Sharon was grief stricken. He buried Lily at Sycamore Ranch, next to Gur, who had died in 1967. Sharon’s life seemed to have come full circle. For all his successes and honors in the past, he was out of the political process. For all his efforts at creating a stable and happy family, he had lost first Gali, then Gur, and finally Lily. There remained his two sons: Omri and Gilad. Omri was now a member of the Knesset, whereas Gilad worked Sycamore Farm. Both brothers were eager for their father to return to politics. Gathering a group of friends and political allies, they created a small “kitchen cabinet” to manage Sharon’s political comeback. They had a new set of rules for Sharon, however. Omri and Gilad wanted their father to curb his notorious tongue and not to make public statements about any matters until he had consulted with them. In the past, Sharon would have consulted only with Lily. Now he spoke with his two sons.

SUICIDE BOMBERS One reason the 1993 Oslo Accords did not live up to their potential was the advent of the suicide bomber. In the mid-1990s,

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On November 4, 1995, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin speaks to a crowd of more than 100,000 Israelis in Israel’s King Square, in Tel Aviv. Following the rally, which included songs and speeches about peace, Rabin was shot and killed by an Israeli extremist who did not agree with the signing of the Oslo Accords. King Square was later renamed Rabin Square in honor of the fallen prime minister.

Arab suicide bombers struck Israel for the first time. There had been terrorist raids aplenty in the past, with terrible casualties on both sides, but they had none of the terrifying effect of a suicide bombing.

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ariel sharon The modus operandi of a suicide bomber was quite simple. An Arab, usually a Palestinian, would strap a set of explosives to his body and cover it up with regular clothing. He would enter Israel on a worker’s pass (thousands of Palestinians crossed into Israel each day) and find his way to a crowded café, a bus stop, or perhaps a shopping mall, where he would detonate his explosives, killing himself and whoever else was in the vicinity. More than anything else, suicide bombers made a great dent in Israeli hopes and also raised the level of Israeli fears to one not seen since the early days of independence. For a time, suicide bombers seemed to strike at will, but the everresourceful Israeli police and military developed elaborate screening devices to identify them. Westerners have long wondered what on earth would persuade people to detonate bombs, killing themselves and innocent passersby. Some point to the section in the Koran (the holy book of Islam) that promises great rewards in heaven for those who die in defense of the faith, but this alone cannot account for the use of such a tactic. More likely, the level of despair in the Palestinian territories reached such an all-time low that people were willing to undertake such a drastic measure.

THE OPENING The peace process seemed to spell the end of Ariel Sharon’s career, but a major change in the process gave him an opening to return to the political stage. The chance was provided by the failure of the Camp David Accords in July 2000. In his last year in office, Bill Clinton wanted to leave an important legacy. He had already witnessed the handshake between Rabin and Arafat in 1993; now he wanted to cement the peace process with a final division of the disputed land. In the hot summer of 2000, Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak (elected Isreali prime minister in 1998) came to Camp David, where Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin had forged the agreements of 1979.

failed peace Things started poorly and only went downhill from there. Clinton arguably knew more about Arab-Israeli problems than any previous American leader. Blessed with a formidable memory, Clinton had memorized the names of streets and suburbs in Jerusalem; he was able to speak as knowledgeably as either of his two guests. Things began to unravel very quickly, however. Photographs tell part of the story. In some, Clinton and Barak are shown walking close together, while Arafat either lags behind or sets himself a few feet apart. His countenance became grimmer throughout the conference. Clinton pressed Arafat on several occasions, pointing out that Barak was willing to make greater concessions than any previous Israeli leader (about 93 percent of the land of the West Bank and shared sovereignty over the holy sites of Jerusalem). Diplomacy is never just about land, money, or pieces of paper, though. It also depends to a large extent on human interaction, and in that respect it seems that both Arafat and Barak failed dismally. A leading Israeli diplomat later expressed his belief that Barak and Arafat could not understand one another—that they spoke what were practically different languages of diplomacy. Barak was forthright but condescending; Arafat was distant, cool, and increasingly alienated. The key moment of the breakdown was visible to millions of TV viewers who witnessed Arafat and Barak each trying to persuade the other to go first into a cabin. Writer Avner Falk described the scene: A fascinating dance on the doorstep took place, in which Arafat and Barak each jokingly tried to usher the other into the house before him. Arafat vigorously wagged his finger at Barak, moved behind him and tried to push him forward, as if to say, “no way, you don’t push me. You go first.” This little power struggle was psychologically revealing. Arafat felt that Barak was patronizing him. . . . Arafat had been bossed and

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ariel sharon humiliated by his father when he was a child. He would never let another “father” push him around or humiliate him.

Historians sometimes express skepticism about psychological interpretations, but this circumstance was viewed by millions. Most people watching came to the same conclusion: There was bad chemistry between Arafat and Barak. The two men left a few days later without an agreement. The peace process was stalled. Two months later, Ariel Sharon reentered the political scene. As was typical, he did so with a flourish.

C H A P T E R

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Prime Minister It was September 28, 2000. Just two months had passed since the

Arafat-Barak summit at Camp David ended in failure. On this bright, sunny day, Ariel Sharon went to the Temple Mount. Located at the extreme east end of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount is the most sacred place in the world to Jews and the third most sacred to Muslims. (It is important to Christians, as well, but their attention is given more to the Holy Sepulcher, less than a mile away). The Temple Mount is an outcropping of rock that overlooks a narrow valley. Sharon was flanked by about 1,000 Israeli police equipped in riot gear. Sharon had let it be known he would visit the Temple Mount and consequently received plenty of threats. Palestinian Arabs had sovereignty over the top of the Mount, meaning the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque, but Israeli Jews made numerous visits to the area. The idea that Sharon—who had been such a virulent enemy of Arabs in the

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ariel sharon past—would go to the top of the Holy Mount was anathema to most Arabs. Sharon and his bodyguards spent less than an hour at the Temple Mount. He walked up to the doors of both the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque, but he did not enter either one. As he walked away, Sharon learned there were scuffles between the police and Arab demonstrators, four of whom were wounded. He expressed regret that anyone had been hurt, but maintained—as if he needed to remind people—that Jews must have the right to visit the Temple Mount. Within a week, the revolt known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada began. Intifada, in Arabic, means “throwing off,” in the sense that an angry horse bucks its rider. The Palestinians saw themselves as the horse and the Israelis as the rider. Their primary weapon in striking at Israel was through suicide bombings. Bombings began within a week of Sharon’s visit and increased that autumn and winter. Israelis were shocked; the peace process of the 1990s was suddenly gone, replaced by a harsher, more violent conflict than ever before. In such a time, Israelis began to turn to Sharon. Shlomo Ben-Ami, a previous foreign minister of Israel, explained Sharon’s attraction, “His was a unique talent to produce political blind alleys as a consequence of which his erroneous, frequently destructive moves were seen as an ‘inevitable evil,’ the ‘only option left’ in an otherwise desperate situation. The support for Sharon was always the result of the hopelessness and despair he himself had generated.” Whether or not one agrees with this assessment, Sharon won the elections of February 2001, and one month later he was sworn in as Israel’s eleventh prime minister. This was a remarkable comeback, almost unparalleled in modern times. No other Israeli prime minister had been so old, and none had gone through situations so damaging as the War in Lebanon and the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. Truly, Sharon defied the odds to become his nation’s leader at the advanced age of 73 and in the face of such adversity.

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Security guards surround Ariel Sharon (center) as he leaves the Temple Mount compound on September 28, 2000. Sharon’s visit to Temple Mount caused clashes between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews because the two groups lay claim to the holy site. Within a week of Sharon’s visit to Temple Mount, violence erupted between Israelis and Palestinians, ending any hope that the Oslo Peace Accords had made a difference.

THE HOLY SITES The Temple Mount is the most sacred place in the world to Jews. This site marks the place where the prophet Abraham brought his little son Isaac, prepared to sacrifice the boy at the command of God. Luckily, an angel descended and told Abraham he had shown his faith well enough—that there was no need to sacrifice the child.

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ariel sharon The Temple Mount is also the site of the First and Second Jewish temples. The first was built during the reign of King Solomon. (Solomon’s father, King David, was not allowed to build the Temple because of his crime in sending Bathsheba’s husband to his death.) The First Temple lasted until 587 b.c., when it was destroyed by the Babylonians. The Jews returned 50 years later and built the Second Temple, which was greatly improved during the time of King Herod. Alas, the Second Temple was pulled down by the Romans in a.d. 70. There are those who believe that to demonstrate its greatness, the current State of Israel needs to build the Third Temple, but that would fly in the face of the Muslims, who control the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque. Muslims believe that at one point, the Prophet Muhammad took a night journey. He was carried by the magical horse alAqsa, which brought him to the Holy Mount. Muhammad tethered his horse to the side of the rock and ascended to heaven, where he met Abraham, Isaac, and Christ. This was not the end of Muhammad’s spiritual journey. He returned to earth and to Mecca, and finished his creation of the Muslim faith. Given the competing desires of Arabs and Jews, Moshe Dayan had made a wise compromise. When the Israelis reconquered the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, Dayan gave sovereignty over the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque to Arab families and custody of the Western (or Wailing) Wall to Jewish ones. That compromise kept the peace fairly well until September 28, 2000.

SHARON AND BUSH In the spring and summer of 2001, Ariel Sharon’s situation was difficult. He faced an ever-increasing Palestinian intifada, and the Israeli economy was suffering as a result. The optimism of the late 1990s was replaced by a deep pessimism; many foreign investors pulled out of Israel in 2001 and 2002. Then came the events of September 11, 2001.

prime minister Americans tend to remember September 11, 2001, whereas Israelis tend to remember September 28, 2000, the date on which Sharon visited the Temple Mount. The two dates and the two struggles became linked in the minds of Sharon and U.S. president George W. Bush. Sharon and Bush met for the first time in 1998, when Bush, at that time governor of Texas, was on a visit to Israel. He and Sharon had taken a plane ride over the Israeli countryside, an experience that Bush called “memorable.” Sharon and Bush had much in common. Both were toughtalking men who were proud of being men of the land: Both liked to escape the political capital and go to his desert ranch. Beyond this, Sharon and Bush both believed that terrorism could not be negotiated: terrorists had to be stamped out. The attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan proved in a way to be a godsend for Sharon; after that, he was able to count on President Bush’s firm support. Even so, the spring of 2002 proved perilous. During Passover Week, a suicide bomber detonated himself in Tel Aviv, killing more than 40 people. This was one of the most cynical attacks of the time, and newspaper articles began to appear with headlines like “Can Israel Survive?” To Sharon, the answer was simple: Israel would survive, as it always had. The country would not yield to terrorism. Perhaps it was in that spring of 2002 that Sharon began to envision a 470-mile (756-km) fence between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors. (Its building commenced in 2003.) It was during the winter of 2002, however, that Sharon put the squeeze on Yasser Arafat.

SIEGE OF THE RAMALLAH COMPOUND Sharon and Arafat were old and deadly foes. Their last big clash had been at the Siege of Beirut in the summer of 1982. They now clashed again, at the Siege of Arafat’s compound in Ramallah, on the West Bank.

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To all the world, it looked as if Sharon had decided to kill his longtime enemy. By early 2002, Arafat was a virtual prisoner within the compound. Israeli tanks crept a little closer each day. Sometimes, they shelled the area, and sometimes, they sat quietly. Arafat could go nowhere. Sometimes, electricity to the compound was cut off. To all the world, it looked as if Sharon had decided to kill his longtime enemy. Sharon secretly promised President George Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell he would not do that, however. Instead, he would humiliate Arafat before the world. He would show that he was weak and ineffectual. While Arafat was under siege at Ramallah, Palestinian gunmen were inside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The Israeli army kept that location under siege, as well, but they did not enter because of the international uproar that might ensue. The Church of the Nativity siege finally ended in May 2002, with the Palestinian fighters being sent to other countries, much as what happened to Yasser Arafat at Beirut in 1982. Twenty years to the day after Israel began its invasion of Lebanon (June 6, 1982), Sharon relented, and the IDF stopped its siege of Arafat’s Ramallah compound. The siege had had its effect. Arafat appeared an old and nearly broken man. He was in poor health, and his leadership of the Palestinian Authority had never been so weak. During 2003, it appeared at times as if the entire ArabIsraeli conflict were being personalized in Sharon and Arafat. This was unfortunate, for two people, no matter how complex or interesting, could not speak for two peoples, each millions strong. Sharon and Arafat, however, appeared to be locked in a deadly embrace from which neither could extricate himself. “Sharon and Arafat were the sad embodiment of an archaic

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An Israeli army tank sits outside Yasser Arafat’s compound in Ramallah on March 29, 2002. The Israeli military made Arafat a prisoner in his own compound. The siege ended in May of that year, and the months in seclusion took their toll on Arafat.

political orthodoxy devoid of a vision for the future,” was how one Israeli diplomat later expressed it. Surprisingly, Sharon’s popularity soared during 2002 and 2003. There was an entirely new generation of Israelis, who were too young to remember the horrors of Sabra and Shatila. Born in the 1980s, they knew that Sharon had been a great general in middle age, and now he appeared the embodiment

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ariel sharon of Israeli strength and determination. Even some of his critics acknowledged that he seemed to have changed in some way— to have become more the statesman and less the general. Israeli journalist Ari Shavit quoted Sharon as saying: Well I have made up my mind to make a real effort to arrive at a real agreement. ‘I’m seventy-five. I have no political ambitions beyond the position I now hold. And I see it as an aim and a goal to bring this people security and peace. Therefore I shall make very great efforts. I think that this is something that I need to leave behind me: to try to reach an agreement.

Like so many “hard-liners” in Israeli and U.S. history, Sharon saw himself, and others saw him, as a person who could bring about a solution. The anti-Communist Richard Nixon had been the first U.S. president to go to China, and the ultimate Israeli right-winger, Menachem Begin, had made peace with Egypt. Perhaps Sharon, who had fought the Palestinians for so long, was the man to make peace with them. Sharon announced his intentions to the Israeli nation in the autumn of 2003. He believed that Yasser Arafat was a spent force (Arafat died in November 2004), so Sharon addressed his remarks to Israelis and Palestinians, but not to the Palestinian Authority. Sharon would lead Israel to a unilateral disengagement from the Palestinians. He would build a wall to protect Israel. He would keep the IDF as strong as ever, but he would also dismantle the Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and return sovereignty of that area to the Palestinians. Sharon, who had been military commandant of the Gaza Strip in 1970–1972 was now going to hand that land over to the Palestinians? Such an idea was incredible. On the same day that the Knesset approved his plan for disengagement, according to

prime minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, Sharon spoke to a group of settlers, whose parents he had helped come to Gaza: You have developed among you a dangerous Messianic spirit. We have no chance to survive in this part of the world that has no mercy for the weak if we persist in this path [of building and maintaining settlements]. I have learnt from my own experience that the sword alone offers no solution. We do not want to rule over millions of Palestinians who multiply every year. Israel will not survive as a democratic state if she continues being a society that occupies another nation. The withdrawal from Gaza will open the gates of a new reality.

WITHDRAWAL Yasser Arafat died in Paris toward the end of 2004. His body was brought to the West Bank for burial. At the beginning of 2005, Sharon pushed forward his unilateral disengagement plan. By that time, some of the heat was off Sharon, regarding Middle East politics. The United States, led by President George W. Bush, had invaded Iraq and overthrown Saddam Hussein in 2003, but the victory proved incomplete. During 2004 and 2005, the U.S. forces occupying Iraq suffered more losses from suicide bombers and IEDs (homemade, or “improvised” explosive devices) than did the Israelis. Moreover, Sharon’s vision of a protective fence had come into reality. The fence was very successful in keeping out suicide bombers, but it also harmed the economy of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israelis were reluctant to admit how dependent they had become on cheap labor, imported on a daily basis from the West Bank. Sharon’s popularity peaked in 2005; he was seen as the savior of Israel in the twenty-first century. The settlers turned on him, however. There were many ugly scenes in the summer of 2005, as Israeli soldiers and police evicted Israeli settlers from the

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In the photograph above, Jewish settlers leave the Gaza Strip on August 15, 2005. Sharon ordered the removal of Israeli civilians from the Gaza Strip, ending Israel’s 38-year occupation of the strip of land. By September 2005, the removal was complete and Palestinians were given control of the area.

northern part of the Gaza Strip. This was land on which their parents had settled in the 1970s—land on which Sharon had encouraged their parents to settle. Now he was taking it from them and giving it to the Palestinians.

prime minister There were scuffles aplenty. Israeli soldiers had to bring in bulldozers to knock down some of the houses in the settlement. There were cries that Sharon was a traitor, that he had deserted them. In the end, though, by September 2005, all Israelis were out of Gaza. The land was turned over to the Palestinian Authority. Five years earlier—when Sharon went to the Temple Mount—no one thought he would ever become prime minister. Four years earlier, when he defied the odds and became his country’s chief executive, no one thought he would ever hand land over to the Palestinians. Sharon had confounded friend and foe alike. He was about to fight his last battle.

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C H A P T E R

10

Sharon and Israel The general-turned-politician suffered a stroke in December 2005.

Rushed to an emergency care unit, he lay comatose and suffered another stroke and perhaps one or two heart attacks in January 2006. Yet he did not die. Doctors freely confessed their amazement. The great majority of men and women would already be dead, they admitted. Sharon, however, clung to life from his hospital bed. Just one month before he was stricken, Sharon bolted the ranks of the Likud Party, which he had helped form in 1973, and created a brand new party called Kadima (“forward”). The move seemed unnecessary because Sharon already had such tight control over Likud, but observers noted that Sharon always did the unexpected. That was how he had defeated Egypt during the 1973 war; it was also how he had confounded his political foes in 2000 and 2001.

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sharon and israel Because Sharon was hospitalized, leadership of the new Kadima Party went to Ehud Olmert, the right-wing former mayor of Jerusalem. As they went to the polls in March 2006, Israelis remembered Sharon more than anything else, and they gave the electoral victory to Olmert and the new Kadima Party. Although unconscious, Sharon clung to life.

THE NEW ISRAELIS By 2005, the year Sharon removed the settlers from the Gaza Strip, the Israelis were a very different people from the ones he had known back in 1948, the year of independence. The land was much the same, and Sharon, who had always been a farmer first, could still point out every spot of orchard, farm, and valley on the way from Tel Aviv to his Sycamore Ranch. But the people were different indeed. When Israel won independence in 1948, there were about 800,000 Israelis, and the vast majority of them were European (including Russian) Jews. They were divided into the sabras— those born in Palestine—and the newcomers, but they were united in their determination to create a successful Jewish state in the Holy Land. They did so, and in record time. By 1973, the year of the Yom Kippur War, there were more than 3 million Israelis, and many different ethnic groups were represented. The European Jews had come first, but they were about matched in number by the Sephardic Jews, many of whom came from Arab countries such as Morocco and Yemen (the latter had made a sensational trek across the desert in 1948). There was also a smattering of American Jews, idealistic young people who left comparatively comfortable lives in Manhattan or Los Angeles to live and work on Israeli kibbutzes. By 2000, the year Sharon made his seminal trip to the Temple Mount, there were about 6 million Israelis. Roughly one million were “Arab Israelis”; the other 5 million were split between European Jews, Sephardic Jews, Ethiopian Jews, and

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After Ariel Sharon suffered a debilitating stroke, Ehud Olmert became the acting prime minister of Israel. Months later, Olmert became the official prime minister. Above, Ehud Olmert casts his vote in the general Israeli elections on March 28, 2006.

sharon and israel other countries and national groups. Israel had indeed become the Promised Land for Jews from around the world, and darkskinned Ethiopians lived next door to white-skinned Russians. Anyone watching the Israeli scene expressed admiration over the success of the Israeli experiment, but it was not without its tensions. This was especially noticeable between older and younger Israelis, and rural and urban ones. Writer Donna Rosenthal observed: The founders [of 1948] never imagined that their children would be running vegan restaurants and renting out halls for yoga retreats and tai chi seminars, that debt-plagued kibbutzim would sell agricultural land to developers to turn into luxury homes for Israelis seeking a suburban life. A few kibbutzim have constructed malls that are open on Sabbath, when most Jewish Israeli retailers are closed. These shopping centers, complete with Home Depots and Toys ‘R’ Us, draw thousands of secular shoppers.

Few of the founding generation were left in 2006, when Sharon was confined to his hospital bed. Those who were could barely recognize the new Israel. Yet Sharon had been through it all and endured. He was stunningly consistent in his defiance of consistency. He did what he needed in order to survive, and in so doing he became one of the key images of resilient Israel.

HIS LEGACY Prominent Israeli journalist Ari Shavit recalled his many diverging memories of Sharon: As far back as I can remember, I remember Ariel Sharon. First, he was Arik of the Paratroopers. . . . Then he was Arik of Sinai. . . . In 1973, he was Arik, King of Israel. . . . In the late nineteen-seventies and early eighties, as a civilian minister,

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Israeli soldiers are photographed as they attend a briefing concerning the Hezbollah attacks on July 25, 2006. The Israel-Lebanon conflict lasted until August 2006, when Israel lifted its blockade against Lebanon.

he was Arik the Settler. . . . Finally, he was for us, the young liberals of Israel, Arik the Leper, who, in 1982, led the war into a catastrophic war in Lebanon.

Which was the “real” Sharon? He never gave away his true identity. Sharon was a chameleon who could present the side he wanted when he wanted. Down deep, however, his identity was that of a farmer, a man married to the soil. The

sharon and israel same journalist noticed that Sharon often expressed envy of his Arab foes, noting that they were better wedded to the land than their Israeli counterparts. Sharon was no David Ben-Gurion; he did not have that skill at attracting sympathy and admiration (from Israelis or foreigners). He was no Moshe Dayan; he did not enjoy that kind of charm or charisma. Still less was he a Shimon Peres, able to talk tough with his fellow Israelis, while holding out an olive branch to the Arabs. One had to wonder, though: How would Israel have fared without Ariel Sharon? The country would have survived and endured without his victory in crossing the Suez Canal in 1973, but would it have come to peace with Egypt? Sharon thought not. He believed his victory was essential in bringing the Egyptians to the peace table a few years later, and he may have been right. The country would surely have been better off without his invasion of Lebanon in 1982. That exposed chasms in Israeli society that had not appeared before: Some liken it to the American experience in Vietnam. Yet one has to ask: Was it not better to have the PLO expelled from Lebanon? Perhaps. All this leads to the final question: Was Sharon necessary? The answer is yes. Israel needed the warrior-politician. Sharon was the single most enduring image of Israel for more than 30 years, from the death of David Ben-Gurion to his own hospital confinement. Israel needed Sharon in the way that the Confederacy needed Robert E. Lee and that the Union needed Ulysses S. Grant. He was their warrior, their fighter, and, finally, he became their politician.

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Chronology

1917

February and October Revolutions take place in Russia; Balfour Declaration is made in November; British enter Jerusalem in December.



1922

Samuil Scheinerman and Vera Schneirov marry and move to Palestine.



1926

Dita Scheinerman is born at Kfar Malal.



1928

Ariel Sharon (Scheinerman) is born at Kfar Malal.



1929

Jews and Arabs fight and riot around the Temple Mount.



1941

Sharon begins high school in Tel Aviv.



1945

He graduates and enters the Haganah.



1947

United Nations announces the partition of Palestine.



1948

Israel fights a War for Independence; Sharon is wounded at Battle of Latrun.



1951

Sharon goes to the United States.



1953

Sharon retires from active duty and marries Gali Zimmerman; he returns to command a new unit, Commando 101.



1956

Sharon leads a tank unit to Mitla Pass during Sinai Campaign.



1957–1958



1962

Gali dies in an auto accident.



1963

Sharon marries Lily Zimmerman.



1965

He becomes a major general in the Israeli Defense Forces.



1967

Sharon leads tank division in Six-Day War; Gur Sharon dies in a tragic accident.

The Sharon family lives in England.

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1970–1972

Sharon commands Gaza Strip as Israeli commandant.



1973

Sharon retires from active duty; he helps form Likud Party; Yom Kippur War is fought; Sharon crossed the Suez Canal; he is elected to the Knesset.



1974

Sharon retires from Knesset, to farm at Sycamore Ranch.



1977

Menachem Begin becomes new prime minister; Sharon becomes minister of agriculture.



1981

Sharon becomes minister of defense.



1982

Sharon begins Operation Galilee in June; the PLO is forced to leave Beirut in August; Massacres at Sabra and Shatila occur in September.



1983

Sharon becomes minister without portfolio.



1984

Sharon wages legal suit against Time magazine.



1992

Yitzhak Rabin becomes prime minister.



1993

Oslo Accords take place between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.



1995

Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by a fellow Israeli.



1999

Sharon becomes leader of Likud Party.



2000

Lily Sharon dies of cancer; peace talks fail at Camp David; Sharon visits the Temple Mount; the Second Intifada begins.



2001

Sharon becomes eleventh prime minister of Israel; terrorists attack United States on September 11.



2002

Yasser Arafat is confined to Ramallah compound; terrorist attacks escalate; Israel is in an economic depression.

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2003

The Road to Peace Map; Sharon announces his intention to turn over Gaza Strip.



2004

Yasser Arafat dies in Paris.



2005

Israeli settlers are removed from Gaza; land is turned over to the Palestinian Authority; Sharon leaves Likud and forms a new party, Kadima; he suffers a stroke.



2006

Sharon lies in a coma.

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Bibliography Adler, Renata. Reckless Disregard: Westmoreland v. CBS et al; Sharon v. Time. New York: Knopf, 1986. Almog, Oz. The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2000. Ben-Ami, Shlomo. Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The IsraeliArab Tragedy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006. Dan, Uri. Blood Libel: The Inside Story of General Ariel Sharon’s History-Making Suit Against Time Magazine. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. Falk, Avner, Fratricide in the Holy Land: A Psychoanalytic View of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004. Kimmerling, Baruch. Politicide: Ariel Sharon’s War Against the Palestinians. London: Verso, 2003. Maraini, Fosco. Jerusalem: Rock of Ages, Judith Landry, trans. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969. Rosenthal, Donna. The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land. New York: The Free Press, 2003. Rubin, Barry, and Judith Colp Rubin. Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003. Sharon, Ariel, with David Chanoff. Warrior: An Autobiography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989. Weisfeld A. Sabra and Shatila: A New Auschwitz. Jerusalem International Publishing House, 1984. Articles

Shavit, Ari, “The General: An Israeli Journalist’s Six Years of Conversation with Ariel Sharon,” The New Yorker (January 23 and 30, 2006).

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Further Reading Books

Finkelstein, Norman H. Ariel Sharon. Minneapolis, Minn.: Lerner Publishing Group, 2005. Maraini, Fosco. Jerusalem: Rock of Ages, Judith Landry, trans. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969. Reich, Bernard. A Brief History of Israel. New York: Facts on File, 2004. Rosenthal, Donna. The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land. New York: The Free Press, 2003. Sharon, Ariel, with David Chanoff. Warrior: An Autobiography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989. Slavicek, Louise Chipley. Israel. New York: Chelsea House, 2002. Williams, Colleen Madonna Flood. Yasir Arafat. New York, Chelsea House, 2002. Zeigler, Donald J. Israel, Second Edition. New York: Chelsea House, 2006.

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Photo Credits page: Frontis: ©Kontos Yannis/Corbis/ Sygma 14: Associated Press, GPO 17: ©Henri Bureau/Sygma/ Corbis 21: ©Sotheby’s/Handout/ Reuters/Corbis 26: ©Corbis 30: ©Bettmann/Corbis 36: ©Bettmann/Corbis 40: Associated Press, AP 44: ©Getty Images 46: ©Getty Images 50: Associated Press, AP



53: Associated Press, AP 58: Associated Press, AP 62: ©Getty Images 66: Associated Press, AP 69: ©Getty Images 72: ©Time & Life Pictures/ Getty Images 76: Associated Press, AP 79: Associated Press, AP 85: Associated Press, AP 88: Associated Press, AP 92: Associated Press, AP 96: Associated Press, AP 98: Associated Press, AP

Cover: Getty Images News/Getty Images

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Index War of Independence and, 33 birth name, 32 birthday of Ariel Sharon, 19 Britain Balfour Declaration and, 20–22 League of Nations mandate and, 25, 29 life in, 45–47 Suez War of 1956 and, 41–43 Bryce, James, 9 Bush, George W., 87, 88

Abraham, Temple Mount and, 85 absolutism, 9–10 agriculture, minister of, 56–57, 61 agronomy, 22, 23 Al-Aqsa Intifada, 84 Al-Aqsa mosque, 83–84, 86 Alexandroni Brigade, 33 Al-Fatah, 60 alienation, 25 Arafat, Yasser Camp David Accords and, 80–82 death of, 90, 91 diplomacy and, 74 Lebanon and, 63–64 Oslo Accords and, 75–77 Ramallah compound siege and, 87–89 as terrorist, 60 Argov, Schlomo, 62 arms shipments, 43, 45

Camp David Accords, 57, 80–82 Carter, Jimmy, 57 cease-fire, reasons for, 18 Chinese Farm, 15 Christian militia, 65–67 Church of the Nativity, 88 Churchill, Winston, 7 civilians, violence and, 40–41 Clinton, William J., 75, 76, 77, 80–81 Commando 101 unit, 35–37, 44 Commando 202 unit, 37, 39–40 Communist Party, 20, 23 concentration camps, 32

Balfour Declaration, 20–22, 24, 31 banking scandal, 55 bar mitzvah, 24–25 Barak, Ehud, Camp David Accords and, 80–82 Bathsheba, 86 Begin, Menachem Lebanon and, 61, 63 relationship with, 53–54, 56–60 Sabra, Shatila and, 67, 68, 69 Beirut, 63 Ben-Ami, Schlomo, 84, 91 Ben-Gurion, David creation of Israel and, 29–31 overview of, 31–32 relationship with, 41, 43

David (King), 86 Day of Atonement, 12–18, 52 Dayan, Moshe death of, 38 relationship with, 37–38 Suez War of 1956 and, 41–43 Temple Mount and, 86 World War II and, 36 Yom Kippur War and, 12–13, 15–16 de Tocqueville, Alexis, 9, 11 defamation, Time magazine and, 71

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defense, minister of, 61 democracy, parliamentary, 55 determinism, history and, 6–7 disengagement plan, 90–91 Dome of the Rock, 83–84, 86 education, 25–27 Egypt Six-Day War and, 48–49, 50 Suez War of 1956 and, 41–43 War of Independence and, 33 Yom Kippur War and, 12–18, 52 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 43 embargoes, 43 emigration, protests and, 26 emotion, democracy and, 10 equality, revolution of, 9 eye patch, 36, 37 fence between Israel and Palestine, 87, 90 First Intifada, 73–74 First Temple, 86 Flak, Avner, 51 France, Suez War of 1956 and, 41–43 freedom, determinism and, 7 freedom fighters, terrorism vs., 39 Gaza Strip First Intifada and, 73–74 Oslo Accords and, 75–76 return of to Palestinian Authority, 90–93 Gemayel, Bashir, 64, 65 Gemayel, Pierre, 71 George V (King of England), 22 Gidi Pass, 49 Golan Heights, 49, 52, 53 Haganah, 27, 32 Haig, Alexander, 61

Halevy, David, 70–71 hedonism, 59 Heirut Party, 53 Herod (King), 86 Herzl, Theodore, 24, 29 Hezbollah, 98 history, predestination and, 6–7 IEDs, 90 individuals, 6, 7–8 intifadas, 73–74, 84, 86 Isaac, Temple Mount and, 85 Israel birth of state of, 29–31 ethnic groups of, 95–97 fence and, 87 Gaza Strip evictions and, 90–93 George W. Bush and, 87 Oslo Accords and, 75–76 Six-Day War and, 48–49, 50 Suez War of 1956 and, 41–43 United States and, 43–45 War of 1948 and, 32–34 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), 13, 35 James, William, 8 Jerusalem Britain and, 22 Knesset and, 55 Six-Day War and, 49 Yasser Arafat and, 60 Jews, 20–22, 95–97 Jordan, 33, 49, 50 Jordan River, 59 Kadima Party, 94–95 Kahan Report, 67–68 Kennedy, John F., 44 Kerensky, Alexander, 19–20 Keynes, John Maynard, 8 Kfar Malal, 27, 33

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Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 41–43 Nativity, Church of, 88 Nazism, 7 Negev Desert, 15, 54, 56, 73 neighbors, relationship with, 23–24 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 77 Nicholas II (Czar of Russia), 19 nicknames, 59 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 10 Nixon, Richard, 17–18, 90

Kibbya, 40 King David Hotel, 57 Kissinger, Henry, 13, 17–18 Knesset, 54, 55, 66–67 Labor Party, 18, 55 Latrun, 33 leadership actions and, 8–9 equality and, 9–10 individuals and, 6 modes of, 9 tests of, 10–11 thought and, 8 League of Nations, British mandate from, 25, 29 Lebanon invasion of, 61–64, 98 Yasser Arafat and, 60 legacy of Ariel Sharon, 97–99 Lenin, Vladimir, Provisional Government and, 20 libel suit, 68–73 Likud Party, 18, 54, 55, 94

Olmert, Ehud, 95, 96 Olympics, 60 Oslo Accords, 55, 75–77 Palestine in 1930s, 24–25 Balfour Declaration and, 21, 22 fence and, 87 First Intifada and, 73–74 Gaza Strip and, 90–93 Oslo Accords and, 75–77 Zionist Movement and, 24 Palestine Authority, Gaza Strip and, 90–93 Palestinian Authority, Oslo Accords and, 75–76 Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), 60, 63–64 parliament, 54, 55, 66–67 Passover Week, 87 Patton, George, comparison to, 39 peace, Menachem Begin and, 57–58 Peace for Galilee, 61–64 Peres, Shimon, 77 persecution, Communist Party and, 23 PLO, 60, 63–64

malaria, 34 Marxism, 7 massacres, 65–67 Meir, Golda, 12–13, 15, 17–18 Middle East War of 1973, 12–18, 52 minister of agriculture, 56–57, 61 minister of defense, 61 missiles, 62–63 Mitla Pass, 42, 49 moshavs, 23 Muhammad, Holy Mount and, 86 Munich Olympics, 60 Napoleonic Wars, 6–7 NASDAQ, 78

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stock exchange, 78 stroke, 94, 96 Suez Canal, Yom Kippur War and, 14, 15–16 Suez War of 1956, 39–43 suicide bombings, 78–80, 84, 87, 90 surface-to-air missiles, 62–63 Sweet Water Canal, 15 Sycamore Farm, 54, 73, 78 Syria Bashir Gemayel and, 64 Lebanon and, 61–62 Six-Day War and, 48–49, 50 USSR and, 45 Yom Kippur War and, 12–18, 52–53

Powell, Colin, 88 prime minister, election to position of, 84 protests, emigration and, 26 Provisional Government, 19–20 Quneitra, 53 Rabin, Yitzhak assassination of, 77, 79 history of, 54–55 Oslo Accords and, 75–76 Ramallah compound, siege of, 87–89 Reagan, Ronald, 61, 63 revenge, Commando 202 unit and, 39–40 Romanov Dynasty, 19 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 7 Rosenthal, Donna, 97 Sabra, massacre at, 65–69 Sadat, Anwar, 58–59 SAM, 62–63 Scheinerman, Ariel, as birth name, 32 Scheinerman, Samuil (father), 22–23, 31, 45 Second Temple, 86 September 11 attacks, 86–87 Sharon, Gilad (son), 78 Sharon, Gur (son), 45, 51–52 Sharon, Lily (wife), 46, 47, 54, 78 Sharon, Margalit (wife), 27, 35, 45, 46–47 Sharon, Omri (son), 78 Shatila, massacre at, 65–69 Shavit, Ari, 97–98 Sheinerman, Vera (mother), 22–23 Six-Day War, 48–49, 50 Solomon (King), 86

tanks, use of, 39–43 Tel Aviv, 23, 25–27 Temple Mount, 49, 83–84, 85–86 terrorism freedom fighters vs., 39 September 11 attacks and, 86–87 West Bank and, 59 Yasser Arafat and, 60 “Three No’s”, 51 Time magazine, libel suit and, 69–73 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 9, 11 Truman, Harry, 43–44 Tunisia, 64 Ulyanov, Vladimir Illyich, 20 United Nations, 30 United States Israel and, 43–45 Suez War of 1956 and, 43 time in, 34–35, 69–73 Unity Party, 18, 54, 55, 94 USSR, Syria and, 45

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violence, excessive, 40–41

Yom Kippur War, 12–18, 52

Wailing Wall, 86 War and Peace (Tolstoy), 6–7 War of Independence, 32–34 West Bank, 58–60, 75–76, 87–88 Wilson, Woodrow, 8 World War I, parents of Sharon and, 19–22, 24 World War II, 36, 39

Zimmerman, Lily (wife), 46, 47, 54, 78 Zimmerman, Margalit (wife), 27, 35, 45, 46–47 Zion, defined, 24 Zionist Movement, 24, 29 Zionists, defined, 24

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About the Authors Samuel Willard Crompton was 12 years old when the Yom Kippur War was fought. It was one of the first major international conflicts he was aware of, and years later he renewed his interest by reading about Ariel Sharon and the crossing of the Suez Canal. Crompton teaches history at Holyoke Community College and Westfield State College, both in his native Massachusetts. He is the author or editor of more than 40 books, most of them in history and biography.

is the leading American historian of our time. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his books The Age of Jackson (1945) and A Thousand Days (1965), which also won the National Book Award. Professor Schlesinger is the Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities at the City University of New York and has been involved in several other Chelsea House projects, including the series Revolutionary War Leaders, Colonial Leaders, and Your Government. ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER, JR.

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