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Ariel Sharon (Hebrew: אריאל שרון), born February 27, 1928, is a long-serving Israeli political and military leader, and has been the current Prime Minister of Israel since March 2001, the eleventh holder of that office. As such, he is also leader of Likud, the largest party in the governing coalition of political parties in the Israeli Knesset (parliament). He was born Ariel Scheinermann, and is also often known by his nickname Arik.
Sharon is a controversial figure both inside and outside Israel, attracting diverse and often polar views. Many Israelis and supporters of Israel regard Sharon as a strong leader battling terrorism. However, critics, particularly in the Arab world, refer to him as "the Butcher of Beirut" and have sought his prosecution as a war criminal. A number of Israelis and foreign observers believe that his recent efforts have been damaging to the peace process.
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[edit] Early years
Sharon was born Ariel Scheinermann in 1928 to a German-Polish father and Russian mother in Kfar Malal village located in the territory then known as British Mandate of Palestine. In 1942, at the age of 14, he joined the Haganah, the Jewish military precursor to the Israeli Defense Force. At the creation of Israel (and Haganah's transformation into the Israel Defense Force), Sharon was a platoon commander in the Alexandroni Brigade. He was severely wounded in the Second Battle of Latrun but his injuries healed. In 1949, he was promoted to company commander and in 1951 to intelligence officer. He then took leave to begin studies of history and Middle Eastern culture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A year and a half later, he was asked to return to active service in the rank of major and as the leader of the new Unit 101.
Unit 101 undertook a series of retaliatory raids against Palestinians and neighboring Arab states that helped bolster Israeli morale and fortify its deterrent image. However, the unit was also criticized for targeting civilians as well as Arab soldiers, resulting in the widely-condemned Qibya massacre in the fall of 1953, in which more than sixty Jordanian civilians were killed in an attack on their village. Investigations later determined that the order to maximize casualties was not given by Sharon himself but by one of his superiors. Shortly afterwards, Unit 101 was merged into the 202nd Paratrooper Brigade (Sharon eventually becoming the latter's commander), which continued to attack military targets, culminating with the attack on Kalkiliya Police in autumn 1956.
Sharon has been married twice. Shortly after becoming a military instructor, he married his first wife, Margalith Sharon, with whom he had a son, Gur.
Margalith died in an auto accident in 1962 and Gur died in October 1967 after being shot while playing with his father's rifle. Upon Margalith’s death, Sharon married her younger sister, Lily. They had two sons, Omri and Gilead. Lily Sharon died in 2000.
[edit] Mitla incident
In the 1956 Suez War (the British "Operation Musketeer"), Sharon commanded the 202nd Brigade and was responsible for taking over ground east of the Sinai's Mitla Pass and eventually overtaking the pass itself. Having successfully carried out the first part of his mission (joining a battalion paratrooped near Mitla with the rest of the brigade moving on ground), Sharon's unit was deployed near the pass. Neither reconnaissance aircraft nor scouts reported enemy forces inside the Mitla Pass. Sharon, whose forces were initially heading east, away from the pass, reported to his superiors that he was increasingly concerned with the possibility of an enemy thrust through the pass, which could attack his brigade from the flank or the rear.
Sharon asked for permission to attack the pass several times but his requests were denied although he was allowed to check its status so that if the pass was empty, he could receive permission to take it later. Sharon sent a small scout force which was met with heavy fire and became bogged down due to vehicle malfunction in the middle of the pass. Sharon ordered the rest of his troops to attack in order to aid their comrades. In the ensuing successful battle to capture the pass more than forty Israeli soldiers were killed. Sharon was not only criticized by his superiors, he was damaged by revelations several years later by several former subordinates (one of IDF's first major revelations to the press), who claimed that Sharon tried to provoke the Egyptians and sent out the scouts in bad faith, ensuring that a battle would ensue. Deliberate or not, the attack was strategically reckless because the Egyptian forces were expected to withdraw from the pass in the following one or two days.
[edit] Six-Day War and Yom Kippur War
The Mitla incident hindered Sharon's military career for several years. In the meanwhile, he occupied the position of an infantry brigade commander and received a law degree from Tel Aviv University. When Yitzhak Rabin (who within a few years became associated with the Labor Party) became Chief of Staff in 1962, however, Sharon began again to rise rapidly in ranks, occupying the positions of Infantry School Commander and Head of Army Training Branch, eventually achieving the rank of Major General (Aluf). In the 1967 Six-Day War, Sharon commanded the most powerful armored division on the Sinai front which made a breakthrough in the Kusseima-Abu-Ageila fortified area. In 1969, he was appointed the Head of IDF's Southern Command. The BBC reported that Sharon was denied the promotion to chief of staff because of his disregard for human life, based on the occupation, under his command, of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He had no further promotions before retiring in August 1973. Soon after, he joined the right-wing Likud political party.[1]
Sharon' s military career was not over, however. At the start of the Yom Kippur War on October 6, 1973, Sharon was called back to duty and assigned to command a reserve armored division. His forces did not engage the Egyptian army immediately but it was Sharon who helped locate a breach between the Egyptian forces which he then exploited in capturing a bridge-head on October 16, and throwing a bridge across the Suez Canal the following day. He violated his orders from the head of Southern Command by exploiting this success to cut the supply lines of the Egyptian Third Army, located to the south of the canal crossing, isolating it from other Egyptian units. The divisions of Sharon and Avraham Adan (Bren) passed over this bridge into Africa advancing to within 101 kilometers of Cairo. They wreaked havoc on the lines of supply of the Third Army stretching to the south of them, cutting off and encircling the Third Army, forcing it to surrender. Tensions between the two generals followed his decision, but a military tribunal later found his action was militarily effective. This move was regarded by many Israelis as the turning point of the war in the Sinai front, which forced the Egyptians to retreat from Sinai and negotiate a cease-fire. Thus, Sharon is viewed by some as a war hero who saved Israel from defeat in Sinai. A photo of Sharon wearing a head-bandage on the Suez Canal became a famous symbol of Israeli military prowess.
Sharon's hawkish political positions were controversial and he was relieved of duty in February, 1974.
[edit] Sabra and Shatila massacre
During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, while Ariel Sharon was Defense Minister, the Sabra and Shatila massacre took place, in which between 460 and 3500 Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps were killed. The local population had been assured by the United States and Israel that they would be safe there. Israel forces had been sent into the camps at Sharon's command to provide logistical support to the Phalange forces and to guard camp exits. The Kahan Commission investigating these massacres recommended in early 1983 the removal of Sharon from his post as Defense Minister for "indirect responsibility" in the massacre, stating that the "Minister of Defense [Sharon] bears personal responsibility". Sharon was dismissed by Prime Minister Begin but he remained in successive governments as a Minister.
In 1987, Time Magazine published a story implying Sharon was directly responsible for the massacres. Sharon sued Time for libel in American and Israeli courts. The magazine won the suit in the U.S. court because Sharon could not establish that Time had "acted out of malice", as required under the U.S. law.
On June 18, 2001, relatives of the victims of the Sabra massacre began proceedings in Belgium to have Ariel Sharon indicted on war crimes charges. In June 2002, a Brussels Appeals Court rejected the lawsuit because the law was subsequently changed to disallow such lawsuits unless a Belgian citizen is involved. Elie Hobeika, the Phalangist commander who ordered the massacres, offered to go to Brussels, possibly to testify against Sharon, but he was assassinated by car bomb shortly thereafter.
[edit] Political career
Sharon was a member of the Knesset 1973-1974, and then from 1977 to the present. In 1975-1976, he served as the security adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He then served as Minister of Agriculture (1977-1981), and as Defense Minister (1981-1983) in Menachem Begin's Likud government.
After being dismissed from the Defense Minister post for indirect responsibility in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, Sharon remained in successive governments as a Minister without portfolio (1983-1984), Minister for Trade and Industry (1984-1990), and Minister for Housing Construction (1990-1992). In Benjamin Netanyahu's 1996-1999 government, he was Minister of National Infrastructure (1996-1998), and Foreign Minister (1998-1999). Upon the election of the Barak Labor government, Sharon became leader of the Likud party. After the collapse of Barak's government, he was elected Prime Minister in February 2001.
On January 20, 2004, an Israeli court charged property developer David Appel with trying to bribe Sharon (through his son Gilad) while Sharon had served as Israel's National Infrastructure Minister in the 1990s. On June 14, 2004, Israel's Attorney General, Meni Mazouz, decided to close the case due to lack of evidence and prosecutorial misconduct.
In the same year, Sharon proposed Israel's unilateral disengagement plan of 2004.
According to the Palestinians, Ariel Sharon has followed an aggressive policy of non-negotiation. Palestinians allege that the al-Aqsa Intifada started because of a visit by Sharon and an escort of several hundred policemen to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount complex, site of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque. Sharon's visit came after archeologists claimed that extensive building operations at the site were destroying priceless antiquities. While visiting the site, Sharon declared that the complex would remain under perpetual Israeli control. Palestinian commentators accused Sharon of purposely inflaming emotions with the event to provoke a violent response and obstruct success of delicate ongoing peace talks.
Israel denies this claim vehemently, claiming instead that the Al-Aqsa Intifada was engineered by Yasser Arafat as a leverage tool.
Palestinians doubt the existence of popular support for Sharon's actions. Polls published in the media, as well as the 140% call-up of reservists (as opposed to the 60% in regular periods) seem to indicate that the Israeli public is quite supportive of Sharon's policies. A survey conducted by Tel Aviv University's Jaffe Center in May 2004 found that 80% of Jewish Israelis believe that the Israel Defense Forces have succeeded in militarily countering the Al-Aqsa Intifada, [2] indicating widespread faith in Sharon's hard-line policy.
On 20 July 2004, Sharon called on French Jews to emigrate to Israel immediately, in light of a purported increase in French anti-semitism (94 anti-semitic assaults reported in the first six months of 2004 compared to 47 in 2003). France has the third largest Jewish population (about 600,000 people), after Israel and the United States. Sharon claimed that an "unfettered antisemitism" reigned in France. The French government responded by describing his comments as "unacceptable", as did the French representative Jewish organization CRIF, which denied Sharon's claim of intense antisemitism in French society. An Israeli spokesperson later claimed that Sharon had been misunderstood. France has indefinitely postponed a visit by Sharon.
In late 2004, Rabbi Yossi Dayan threatened Sharon with a kabbalistic curse, the Pulsa diNura, over his disagreement with Sharon's plan for unilateral evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.
[edit] Quotes
- "If we [are to] reach a situation of true peace, real peace, peace for generations, we will have to make painful concessions. Not in exchange for promises, but rather in exchange for peace." — Ariel Sharon, as Prime Minister, April 2003. [3] [4]
- "Everyone there should move, should run, should grab more hills, expand the territory. Everything that's grabbed, will be in our hands. Everything we don't grab will be in their hands." — Ariel Sharon, as Israeli Foreign Minister, in comments broadcast on Israeli radio, November 15, 1998. [5]
- "I am for lasting peace... United, I believe, we [Jews and Arabs together] can win the battle for peace. But it must be a different peace, one with full recognition of the rights of the Jews in their one and only land: peace with security for generations and peace with a united Jerusalem as the eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish people in the state of Israel forever." [6] [7]
- "[Iran, Libya and Syria] are irresponsible states, which must be disarmed of weapons [of] mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve." — Ariel Sharon, speaking to American Congressmen [8]
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Prime Ministers of Israel | Succeeded by: (Incumbent) |
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