Ariel Sharon, the Israeli warrior and former prime minister as famous for his ferocity in battling Arabs as for his turnaround decision to evacuate settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip, has died. He was 85.
Sharon "was a brave soldier and a daring leader," the office of President Shimon Peres said in a statement on Saturday. The former prime minister had been in a coma since suffering a stroke in January 2006.
Admired as a military strategist while despised by Arab foes, the man nicknamed "the bulldozer" in the media left a legacy of controversy on and off battlefields from the early days of the nation's existence. Sharon was distrusted for defying commanders and criticised for his deadly raids against militants. A government panel found he bore indirect responsibility for the 1982 slaughter of hundreds of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
Palestinian rule
"The withdrawal from Gaza wasn't to buy peace, but to resolve a security situation," said Dov Weissglas, Sharon's chief of staff. "Someone had to say the buck stops here. This was Sharon."
In 2005, he ordered soldiers and 8,500 settlers to unilaterally leave the Gaza Strip and handed over the territory to Palestinian rule. The decision to leave Gaza won Sharon international accolades while causing an uproar among his power base. US President George W Bush hailed him at the time as "a man of peace" for being willing to make what Sharon called "painful concessions" to the Palestinians.
Detractors accused him of betraying the settlement cause, and the withdrawal is still debated in Israel because it allowed Gaza militants greater freedom to attack its southern border."One thing, however, Sharon never succeeded in doing, not even when he evacuated Gaza to the last inch," Israeli author Amos Oz wrote in the UK's Guardian newspaper in 2006. "He never really sat down with the Palestinians to try to talk with them the way one neighbour speaks to the other neighbour."
Early years
Ariel Sharon was born on February 26, 1928, in Kfar Malal, a farming village north of Tel Aviv that was then part of British-ruled Palestine.
Sharon's military career could have ended before it began, after he was badly wounded leading troops in the war over Israel's 1948 creation. In his 1989 autobiography, "Warrior," he described himself as "oppressed by feelings of frustration and disappointment" that Arab nations held on to east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Only 21, he was convinced Israel's military leaders could have done a better job. In the 1967 war in which Israel captured the three territories, Sharon's armoured division helped to seize the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. He retired from the army in 1973, only to be recalled months later after Egyptian forces caught Israel by surprise and crossed the Suez Canal into Sinai.
Attack tactics
Taking charge of an armoured division again, Sharon used attack-when-surrounded tactics that changed the course of the war when his forces broke through Egyptian lines to reach the canal. Even as his troops poured across the waterway, Sharon argued with Israeli generals who tried to hold him back.
His accomplishments as a strategist were offset by questions about his tactics. When he headed a commando unit charged with leading what Israel called reprisal raids in the 1950s, his men killed 69 civilians by blowing up houses in a village in the West Bank, then controlled by Jordan. He said he thought the buildings had been vacated.
In 1956, he was reprimanded for engaging his troops with Egyptian forces in a battle that commanders deemed unnecessary. Dozens of suspected militants were killed in the 1970s when he was assigned to curb terrorism in Gaza. As defence minister during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, he changed the aims of a strike to root out Palestinian militants from southern Lebanon and sent Israeli troops charging as far north as Beirut.
Refugee 'massacres'
While Sharon achieved his aim of evicting the Palestine Liberation Organization from its base in Lebanon, the massacres in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by an Israel-allied Christian militia sparked an uproar that ultimately forced him out of the Defence Ministry. He said he couldn't have anticipated the slaughter.
Sharon was "one of the tyrants who committed scores of bloody massacres against the Palestinian people," said Anwar Abu Taha, a leader of the militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.
Sharon forayed into politics after the 1973 war, a wounded battlefield hero who was often greeted by cheering crowds calling him by his nickname, Arik, and crowning him "Arik, King of Israel." He won a parliament seat in 1973 elections, representing the opposition Likud party, which at the time opposed trading land for peace. He quit after a year of what he saw as tedious politicking.
Agriculture minister
Four years later, Sharon found his political calling, when Menachem Begin's Likud party was catapulted to power. As agriculture minister in Begin's government, he began building dozens of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza that he called essential for Israel's security, defying international opposition to the settling of occupied land. Today, more than 550,000 Jews live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem among 2.6 million Palestinians.
While peace talks with the Palestinians were collapsing under Prime Minister Ehud Barak in September 2000, Sharon, then leader of Likud, paid a visit to a disputed shrine in east Jerusalem, to demonstrate Israeli sovereignty.
The visit set off violent protests that evolved into a full-blown uprising against Israeli rule that killed about 1,000 Israelis and more than 3,300 Palestinians in four years. Four months after the visit, Sharon unseated Barak in early elections. In 2003, he accepted the internationally sponsored road-map plan to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
'Organised reality'
"At that time, deep in his heart, Sharon understood that a Palestinian state was a matter of time," Weissglas said. "If it was doomed to happen, then he wanted to help shape it into an organised reality."
Seeking more flexibility to make peace with the Palestinians after the Gaza withdrawal two years later, Sharon formed a new party, Kadima. Two months before he could lead Kadima to March 2006 elections, he suffered the second of two strokes within weeks and was incapacitated by a brain haemorrhage. He was hospitalised for the rest of his life.
Sharon "was a brave soldier and a daring leader," the office of President Shimon Peres said in a statement on Saturday. The former prime minister had been in a coma since suffering a stroke in January 2006.
Admired as a military strategist while despised by Arab foes, the man nicknamed "the bulldozer" in the media left a legacy of controversy on and off battlefields from the early days of the nation's existence. Sharon was distrusted for defying commanders and criticised for his deadly raids against militants. A government panel found he bore indirect responsibility for the 1982 slaughter of hundreds of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
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Israeli voters, yearning for a tough response to a Palestinian uprising, elected him prime minister by a landslide in 2001. Faced with a succession of suicide bombings, he authorised the killing of Palestinian militants and the reoccupation of West Bank cities. Re-elected two years later, the politician who parlayed cabinet positions to send tens of thousands of Jews to live on land the Palestinians want for a state stunned Israelis by announcing his plan to evacuate Gaza after almost four decades. Withdrawal from four small West Bank settlements was also part of the proposal.
Palestinian rule
"The withdrawal from Gaza wasn't to buy peace, but to resolve a security situation," said Dov Weissglas, Sharon's chief of staff. "Someone had to say the buck stops here. This was Sharon."
In 2005, he ordered soldiers and 8,500 settlers to unilaterally leave the Gaza Strip and handed over the territory to Palestinian rule. The decision to leave Gaza won Sharon international accolades while causing an uproar among his power base. US President George W Bush hailed him at the time as "a man of peace" for being willing to make what Sharon called "painful concessions" to the Palestinians.
Detractors accused him of betraying the settlement cause, and the withdrawal is still debated in Israel because it allowed Gaza militants greater freedom to attack its southern border."One thing, however, Sharon never succeeded in doing, not even when he evacuated Gaza to the last inch," Israeli author Amos Oz wrote in the UK's Guardian newspaper in 2006. "He never really sat down with the Palestinians to try to talk with them the way one neighbour speaks to the other neighbour."
Early years
Ariel Sharon was born on February 26, 1928, in Kfar Malal, a farming village north of Tel Aviv that was then part of British-ruled Palestine.
Sharon's military career could have ended before it began, after he was badly wounded leading troops in the war over Israel's 1948 creation. In his 1989 autobiography, "Warrior," he described himself as "oppressed by feelings of frustration and disappointment" that Arab nations held on to east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Only 21, he was convinced Israel's military leaders could have done a better job. In the 1967 war in which Israel captured the three territories, Sharon's armoured division helped to seize the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. He retired from the army in 1973, only to be recalled months later after Egyptian forces caught Israel by surprise and crossed the Suez Canal into Sinai.
Attack tactics
Taking charge of an armoured division again, Sharon used attack-when-surrounded tactics that changed the course of the war when his forces broke through Egyptian lines to reach the canal. Even as his troops poured across the waterway, Sharon argued with Israeli generals who tried to hold him back.
His accomplishments as a strategist were offset by questions about his tactics. When he headed a commando unit charged with leading what Israel called reprisal raids in the 1950s, his men killed 69 civilians by blowing up houses in a village in the West Bank, then controlled by Jordan. He said he thought the buildings had been vacated.
In 1956, he was reprimanded for engaging his troops with Egyptian forces in a battle that commanders deemed unnecessary. Dozens of suspected militants were killed in the 1970s when he was assigned to curb terrorism in Gaza. As defence minister during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, he changed the aims of a strike to root out Palestinian militants from southern Lebanon and sent Israeli troops charging as far north as Beirut.
Refugee 'massacres'
While Sharon achieved his aim of evicting the Palestine Liberation Organization from its base in Lebanon, the massacres in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by an Israel-allied Christian militia sparked an uproar that ultimately forced him out of the Defence Ministry. He said he couldn't have anticipated the slaughter.
Sharon was "one of the tyrants who committed scores of bloody massacres against the Palestinian people," said Anwar Abu Taha, a leader of the militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.
Sharon forayed into politics after the 1973 war, a wounded battlefield hero who was often greeted by cheering crowds calling him by his nickname, Arik, and crowning him "Arik, King of Israel." He won a parliament seat in 1973 elections, representing the opposition Likud party, which at the time opposed trading land for peace. He quit after a year of what he saw as tedious politicking.
Agriculture minister
Four years later, Sharon found his political calling, when Menachem Begin's Likud party was catapulted to power. As agriculture minister in Begin's government, he began building dozens of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza that he called essential for Israel's security, defying international opposition to the settling of occupied land. Today, more than 550,000 Jews live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem among 2.6 million Palestinians.
While peace talks with the Palestinians were collapsing under Prime Minister Ehud Barak in September 2000, Sharon, then leader of Likud, paid a visit to a disputed shrine in east Jerusalem, to demonstrate Israeli sovereignty.
The visit set off violent protests that evolved into a full-blown uprising against Israeli rule that killed about 1,000 Israelis and more than 3,300 Palestinians in four years. Four months after the visit, Sharon unseated Barak in early elections. In 2003, he accepted the internationally sponsored road-map plan to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
'Organised reality'
"At that time, deep in his heart, Sharon understood that a Palestinian state was a matter of time," Weissglas said. "If it was doomed to happen, then he wanted to help shape it into an organised reality."
Seeking more flexibility to make peace with the Palestinians after the Gaza withdrawal two years later, Sharon formed a new party, Kadima. Two months before he could lead Kadima to March 2006 elections, he suffered the second of two strokes within weeks and was incapacitated by a brain haemorrhage. He was hospitalised for the rest of his life.