Ariel Sharon (1928 - 2014)
Ariel Sharon was a man of complexities and contradictions, a controversial persona. And he was a man of actions, dramatic actions. Some of these actions greatly contributed to the security and wellbeing of the state of Israel. Such was his bold decision to cross the Suez Canal in October 1973, when Israel was facing a real danger of defeat by the Egyptian army.
But most of Sharon's bold actions led to disasters. Such was his bloody military adventure in Lebanon in 1982, which led to terrible carnage, including a massacre in two Palestinian refugee camps, Sabra and Shatilla, for which Sharon was found to have been indirectly responsible. Or his provocative show of force at the entrance to Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in 2000, a move that ignited the Second Intifada.
Most of all, Sharon's building of settlements in the depth of the West Bank, with the clear intention of preventing this area becoming a sovereign Palestinian state, has caused the entanglement of Israel in a web of destructive facts on the ground of the West Bank.
The irony is that to rid itself of the settlements and the occupation that they perpetuate, Israel will need a leader with the strength of Ariel Sharon: a determined, courageous leader, who is also popular and perceived as trustworthy. Sharon showed that he can do it, when he unilaterally pulled Israel's presence out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, and demolished four more Israeli settlements in the northern West Bank.
In the past couple of days, there were reports and speculations in the Israeli media that had Sharon not fallen ill in 2006 and become incapacitated, he would have continued to pull Israel out of broader segments of the West Bank.
Much has been published about Sharon's life since he passed away Saturday. We recommend the following obits and articles:
Ronen Bergman's New York Times article
Ethan Broner's New York Times obituary
Glenn Frankel's Washington Post obituary
Nahum Barnea's commentary in Ynet