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Ariel Sharon from page 8

They exchanged fire but the call to charge on the
Israeli side never came. Sharon led his men forward
regardless. He was ultimately given complete com-
mand over the platoon in a sign of things to come.
Gen. Sharon never went to officer's school. He
was, however, a gifted commander. In 1967, he
planned the IDF's first divisional battle, against the
Abu Agheila stronghold in the Sinai, completely on
his own; till today, the battle is taught in military
academies across the world.
During the Yom Kippur War, he led Israeli troops
across the Suez Canal, breaking the back of the
Egyptian offensive. As his troops encircled Egypt's
Third Army, Sharon, a reserves officer at the time,
instructed them to plant Israeli flags on the high
ground, so that the Egyptians would look back
across the water and see that they were trapped.
Sharon, known to all as Arik, did not need to have
orders spelled out for him. In 1952, Moshe Dayan
asked him "to see" whether it would be possible to
capture Jordanian soldiers and exchange them for
Israeli POWs. That same day, without being told,
Sharon rounded up a friend and a pickup truck and
drove down to the Jordan River. He waded into the
water, pretended to inquire about missing cows, and
promptly disarmed two Jordanian soldiers.
Dayan, who recommended him for a citation after
that mission, famously said of his generals that he
preferred to restrain war horses than "prod oxen
who refuse to move:' In the Suez war with Egypt in
1956, Sharon captured the strategic Mitla Pass in the
Sinai after defying orders not to advance.
Despite Ben-Gurion's persistent backing and
Sharon's stunning tactical successes in the Six-Day
War, he was eventually pushed out of the army on
July 15, 1973, only to be called back to become a
hero in the Yom Kippur War three months later.

Political Engagement

Sharon helped found the Likud Party. But he
spent his first decade in politics serving under
Menachem Begin. The two could not have been
more different: lawyer and farmer, ideologue and
pragmatist. When they first met in 1969, with
Sharon still in uniform and looking for a way into
politics, he was awed by Begin's "extraordinarily pow-
erful presence" and admitted to breaking into a cold
sweat when they spoke.
During the peace talks with Egypt, their differ-
ences rose to the surface. Begin would agree only
to Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank. Sharon,
his son revealed in his 2011 memoir, was willing to
grant them a state. "Better to have a Palestinian state
on part of the territory than autonomy across all of
it:' Gilad heard him say countless times. The termi-
nology, he felt, was irrelevant. The word autonomy
on a document could metamorphose into a state,
but an internationally recognized Palestinian state,
which seemed like a bigger achievement for Egypt,
would have fixed borders, allowing Israel to main-
tain the areas crucial to its security.
Sharon felt that Begin, a political Zionist like Herzl
and Jabotinsky, "was a man who believed in the
power of words and legal terms and consequently
he gave a high priority to such things as pronounce-
ments, declarations and formal agreements:' he
wrote in his autobiography. Pragmatic Zionism, to
which Sharon ardently subscribed, is based on "facts
on the ground: reclaim another acre, drain another
swamp, acquire another cow ... don't talk about it,
just get it done:' This was the attitude with which

10 January 16 • 2014

The Puzzling Side
Of Ariel Sharon

Israeli President Shimon

Peres speaking at a state
memorial service for former
xti
Prime Ministe
' Sharon,
Jan. 13, 2014.

David Margalit

Israel Hayom

Joe Biden rep se d t
United S ates.

111

he built the settlement enterprise, and this was the
attitude with which he dismantled it.
Sharon admired Begin's bravery, such as his deci-
sion to strike the Iraqi nuclear plant. But the Lebanon
War and the subsequent Kahan Commision of
Inquiry brought an end to their relationship.

Rise To Premiership

Sharon's rise to the premiership, after years of back-
water positions, began in earnest on Sept 28, 2000,
when he came through the Mughrabi Gate and
visited the Temple Mount. The so-called Al Aqsa,
or Second Intifada in Yasser Arafat's Palestinian
Authority ensued. Amid the bloodshed and the
chaos, Ehud Barak stepped down, calling for new
elections for prime minister.
On Feb. 6, 2001, Israelis chose Sharon over
Barak by a 62-38 percent margin. Dayan's predic-
tion from years earlier had come true: "You will
have to wait for a crisis to come alone he said to
Sharon. "It's only then that they will let you out:'
As prime minister, Sharon flattened the wave of
rising Palestinian terror; threw himself heart and
soul into a global campaign to sideline and dele-
gitimize Arafat; and, aided by the heinous events
of 9-11 and a keen understanding of the American
president, he maintained a strong relationship with
then-president Bush and his administration.
In 2005, with the "Disengagement" from Gaza, he
severed his ties to the settlement movement.
Several weeks later, he addressed the General
Assembly on the 60th anniversary of the United
Nations. "I stand before you at the gate of nations
as a Jew and as a citizen of the democratic, free and
sovereign State of Israel, a proud representative of an
ancient people:' he said. "I was born in the Land of
Israel, the son of pioneers — people who tilled the
land and sought no fights — who did not come to
Israel to dispossess its residents. If the circumstances
had not demanded it, I would not have become a
soldier, but rather a farmer and agriculturist. My
first love was, and remains, manual labor: sowing
and harvesting, the pastures, the flock and the cattle.
"I, as someone whose path of life led him to be
a fighter and commander in all Israel's wars, reach
out today to our Palestinian neighbors in a call for
reconciliation and compromise to end the bloody
conflict, and embark on the path that leads to peace
and understanding between our peoples. I view this
as my calling and my primary mission for the com-
ing years:'
The man who for years had been scorned by the
international community, depicted as a butcher and
a bloodthirsty leader, drew applause from all corners
of the room. Three and a half months later, before
revealing the full extent of his future plans, he fell,
terminally, from consciousness.

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JTA contributed to this report.

0

n Jan. 11, 2014, Ariel Sharon made his final journey,
"meeting his fate at the end of days." Now, after eight years
on the anomalous sidelines, he will pass into the purview
of history, where his legacy will be examined without admiration,
without loathing, using only the appropriate professional tools.
From the moment he first set foot on the national stage, Sharon
worked with the drive of a bulldozer, paving the way for communi-
ties of both supporters and opponents, but leaving no one indifferent.
At every juncture of his public life — in the Israel Defense Forces, the
settlement movement, politics and diplomacy — he fulfilled a central
role. An entire book or thesis
could be written about each
and every one of his roles.
A survey of Sharon's work
will reveal many different
academic fields. He will
appear in studies of history,
government, public manage-
ment, sociology, psychol-
ogy, and, of course, military
research.
I imagine that once the
Ariel Sharon addressing
love-hate
storm with Sharon
the weekly cabinet meeting in
passes,
researchers
will be
Jerusalem, Jan. 1, 2006.
interested in studying two
main junctures of Sharon's career: At what point did Sharon under-
stand — and maybe he knew all along — that he had cynically taken
advantage of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin's innocence
and lack of understanding of professional military issues, as well as
his faith in Jewish generals, to guide him against his will into the
First Lebanon War?
Many such claims were raised and squashed, proved and refuted
in the course of Sharon's life. But as time marches on, witnesses to
the circumstances say Sharon knew he was twisting Begin with false-
hoods. How intentional was this? To what extent was Sharon just fol-
lowing events on the ground?
Not that Begin could absolve himself of responsibility for the free
rein afforded to Sharon and former IDF Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan —
rein that he, as prime minister, did not check. But how did it come
about? What were the relations that left Begin groggy and vulner-
able?
The second juncture relates to Gush Katif (the Jewish settlements
in the Gaza Strip). What really happened in the months preceding
the disengagement from Gush Katif in 2005? Was Sharon aware in
his election campaign, while stating "the fate of Nitzarim [a settle-
ment near Gaza City] is the fate of Tel Aviv',' that he was going to
completely uproot Gush Katif?
And even while he cynically mocked Amram Mitzna (Labor
Party) and Yosef "Tommy" Lapid (Shinui Party), who called for
evacuating just three settlements, had Sharon already decided to dis-
engage from the entire area?
If it was all done consciously — why? After all, former Prime
Minister David Ben-Gurion regularly suspected Sharon of twisting
the truth and was skeptical of his credibility even in his first days in
the army. Why would Sharon act this way on such a prominent mat-
ter, about which the truth would ultimately emerge?
Or perhaps the entire unilateral disengagement was based on a
whim, false political panic or ulterior motives that have never been
clarified?
In any case, Sharon's personality plays a central role in this study,
the results of which are already known. The psychological process
behind it, however, is an interesting mystery And this is just the
beginning.

❑

