Ariel Sharon - obituary

Ariel Sharon - obituary

... Excerpt

Ariel Sharon was an Israeli leader famed for bold, brash, ruthless manoeuvres both in politics and on the battlefield

12:44PM GMT 11 Jan 2014

Ariel Sharon, who has died aged 85, was Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 and one of the Middle East’s most formidable politicians.

 

Always controversial, Sharon’s skill and ruthlessness in his earlier years as a professional soldier were equally evident in his career in politics. In both spheres he exhibited an almost limitless capacity to surprise — never more so than when, in 2005, he unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the northern West Bank, a move which outraged many of his people; or when, in November 2005, he announced that he was leaving the Likud party to establish a new centrist party, Kadima, which also included figures such as the former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who resigned from the Labour party to join Kadima.

 

But Sharon’s leadership came to an abrupt end on January 4 2006, when he suffered a stroke from which he never recovered; his deputy, Ehud Olmert, was confirmed as the acting prime minister in his place.

 

Sharon had come to power five years earlier. He decisively defeated the incumbent prime minister, Ehud Barak, and formed a Likud-Labour coalition government. He then embarked on a remorseless campaign to crush the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, declaring Yasser Arafat “irrelevant”, bombing the Palestinian leader’s private helicopter and sending tanks to surround his headquarters at Ramallah, effectively putting Arafat under house arrest.

 

 

Prime Minister Menachem Begin once said of Sharon: “He’s a brilliant general, but a vicious man.” Sharon had been defence minister in Begin’s Likud government from 1981 to 1983 and the architect of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. This invasion, triggered by an attempt on the life of Israel’s ambassador in London, was aimed at crushing Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Lebanon and pushing Syrian forces out of Beirut.

 

Sharon assured ministers that the operation would be short — between 24 and 48 hours — and that there would be no confrontation with the Syrian forces in Lebanon. But when Operation “Peace for Galilee” started, Sharon expanded it into a fully-fledged war, instructing his forces to go deeper into Lebanon and to provoke the Syrians into a conflict.

Having secured the departure of the PLO and the Syrians from Beirut, Sharon set out to install the Maronite leader, Bashir Gemayel, as the President of Lebanon. But with hundreds of Israeli soldiers killed, and following the assassination of Gemayel, Sharon lost the support of many of his soldiers and of ministers.

 

When, in September, the Christian Phalange massacred hundreds of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, 400,000 Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv to protest.

 

The Israeli president, Yitzhak Navon, went on television demanding that the government investigate the tragic events in the camps, and hinted that he would resign if his demands were not met; Prime Minister Begin conceded, appointing a commission of inquiry under Yitzhak Kahan, the Chief Supreme Court judge, which published a report blaming Sharon for culpable negligence and advising Begin to consider removing him, which the prime minister duly did.

 

The youngest of two children, Sharon was born Ariel Sheinerman at Moshav Kfar Malal, a cooperative farming village in Palestine, on February 27 1928. His parents, Russian immigrants, did not get on well with their neighbours, and the other children kept their distance from “Arik”, as he was known. “I felt isolated, lonely,” he later recalled. “The slights hurt deeply.” His upbringing was strict, and he was an average student at the Geula high school in Tel Aviv.

At 14 he joined Hagana, the largest underground organisation in Palestine (then under the British Mandate). After being trained to use pistols and knives he was transferred to an elite platoon called the Signallers.

 

In June 1945, after graduating from high school, Sharon went to Kibbutz Ruhama, on the edge of the Negev desert, to take a secret Hagana squad leaders’ course, but he did not impress his superiors. He returned to Kfar Malal to help his father on the farm and in 1947 enrolled in the Jewish Settlement Police, which patrolled roads and provided guards for isolated Jewish encampments.

 

As a Hagana member, Sharon took part in the civil war between Jews and Arabs in Palestine which broke out following the UN resolution of November 29 1947 to partition the land between the two peoples; it was then that Sharon was marked out as a brave and charismatic leader. He had a talent for reading a battle quickly and accurately, and for exploiting the terrain to maximise an advantage; he always preferred the bold frontal attack. That winter he was made a platoon commander in the Alexandroni brigade.

 

Ariel Sharon, who has died aged 85, was Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 and one of the Middle East’s most formidable politicians.

Always controversial, Sharon’s skill and ruthlessness in his earlier years as a professional soldier were equally evident in his career in politics. In both spheres he exhibited an almost limitless capacity to surprise — never more so than when, in 2005, he unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the northern West Bank, a move which outraged many of his people; or when, in November 2005, he announced that he was leaving the Likud party to establish a new centrist party, Kadima, which also included figures such as the former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who resigned from the Labour party to join Kadima.

But Sharon’s leadership came to an abrupt end on January 4 2006, when he suffered a stroke from which he never recovered; his deputy, Ehud Olmert, was confirmed as the acting prime minister in his place.

 

Sharon had come to power five years earlier. He decisively defeated the incumbent prime minister, Ehud Barak, and formed a Likud-Labour coalition government. He then embarked on a remorseless campaign to crush the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, declaring Yasser Arafat “irrelevant”, bombing the Palestinian leader’s private helicopter and sending tanks to surround his headquarters at Ramallah, effectively putting Arafat under house arrest.

 

Prime Minister Menachem Begin once said of Sharon: “He’s a brilliant general, but a vicious man.” Sharon had been defence minister in Begin’s Likud government from 1981 to 1983 and the architect of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. This invasion, triggered by an attempt on the life of Israel’s ambassador in London, was aimed at crushing Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Lebanon and pushing Syrian forces out of Beirut.

 

Sharon assured ministers that the operation would be short — between 24 and 48 hours — and that there would be no confrontation with the Syrian forces in Lebanon. But when Operation “Peace for Galilee” started, Sharon expanded it into a fully-fledged war, instructing his forces to go deeper into Lebanon and to provoke the Syrians into a conflict.

 

Having secured the departure of the PLO and the Syrians from Beirut, Sharon set out to install the Maronite leader, Bashir Gemayel, as the President of Lebanon. But with hundreds of Israeli soldiers killed, and following the assassination of Gemayel, Sharon lost the support of many of his soldiers and of ministers.

 

When, in September, the Christian Phalange massacred hundreds of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, 400,000 Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv to protest.

The Israeli president, Yitzhak Navon, went on television demanding that the government investigate the tragic events in the camps, and hinted that he would resign if his demands were not met; Prime Minister Begin conceded, appointing a commission of inquiry under Yitzhak Kahan, the Chief Supreme Court judge, which published a report blaming Sharon for culpable negligence and advising Begin to consider removing him, which the prime minister duly did.

 

 

The youngest of two children, Sharon was born Ariel Sheinerman at Moshav Kfar Malal, a cooperative farming village in Palestine, on February 27 1928. His parents, Russian immigrants, did not get on well with their neighbours, and the other children kept their distance from “Arik”, as he was known. “I felt isolated, lonely,” he later recalled. “The slights hurt deeply.” His upbringing was strict, and he was an average student at the Geula high school in Tel Aviv.

 

At 14 he joined Hagana, the largest underground organisation in Palestine (then under the British Mandate). After being trained to use pistols and knives he was transferred to an elite platoon called the Signallers.

In June 1945, after graduating from high school, Sharon went to Kibbutz Ruhama, on the edge of the Negev desert, to take a secret Hagana squad leaders’ course, but he did not impress his superiors. He returned to Kfar Malal to help his father on the farm and in 1947 enrolled in the Jewish Settlement Police, which patrolled roads and provided guards for isolated Jewish encampments.

As a Hagana member, Sharon took part in the civil war between Jews and Arabs in Palestine which broke out following the UN resolution of November 29 1947 to partition the land between the two peoples; it was then that Sharon was marked out as a brave and charismatic leader. He had a talent for reading a battle quickly and accurately, and for exploiting the terrain to maximise an advantage; he always preferred the bold frontal attack. That winter he was made a platoon commander in the Alexandroni brigade.

 

On the night of May 25 1948 Sharon’s platoon joined other forces in a battle against the Jordanian Legion at Latrun, a fortress controlling the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road from where the Jordanians blocked Jewish food convoys from reaching besieged Jerusalem.

The operation was meant to take part under cover of darkness, but it started late; Sharon’s platoon, attacking Latrun from the south, was caught in the glare of the morning sun in an exposed position on a rocky hillside. For most of the day his force was heavily mortared and pinned down by intense fire; the heat was oppressive, water and ammunition were running out and, when a bullet smashed into the radio, his force became separated from other attacking units.

 

When he realised that these units had retreated, Sharon ordered his men to withdraw. But by now 15 of the original 35 were dead; and another 11 — including Sharon, who had been hit by two bullets — were wounded. His clothes soaked with blood, Sharon crawled with the remnants of his platoon over the rocks.

By mid-July Sharon had recovered from his wounds and was well enough to return to full service; he then participated in battles in central Israel and against the Egyptians at “the Faludja Pocket”.

 

When the 1948 war ended, he was appointed commander of the Golani Brigade’s reconnaissance company and, after a stint as the Intelligence Officer at Central Command, in 1952 he was appointed to the same job in Northern Command — then headed by Moshe Dayan, the future Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army.

Sharon’s qualities of cool and daring were again evident in November 1952, when Dayan instructed him to plan an operation to take a few Jordanian soldiers prisoner in order to exchange them with Israelis held in Jordan. Taking his driver with him, Sharon went to the Jordan river and persuaded three Jordanian soldiers to cross to the Israeli bank.

 

As they sat chatting amiably, Sharon suddenly stood up, pulled a pistol from his pocket and forced the three shocked Jordanians into his car. That evening he left a note to Dayan: “Moshe — the mission is accomplished. The prisoners are in the cellar. Shalom, Arik.”

 

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