Ariel Sharon: a warrior blamed for massacres and praised for peacemaking

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/11/ariel-sharon-israel-warrior-death

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"In [Ariel] Sharon, it was all about the point where reality met fantasy," Israeli political scientist Yaron Ezrahi told the Observer, just days after the stroke in January 2006 that put Israel's most controversial prime minister into a coma.

"While he was in opposition, he was an ideologue who believed in the absolute use of Israeli power as a means to attain its goals.

"But when he came to power he became aware of its limits and realised that the settlements were a mistake of historic proportions that burdened Israel's security and economy. Once he realised that, the public saw a politician, who had a reputation as a liar and for ruthlessness, suddenly become a statesman in pursuit of necessity."

Sharon's "long goodbye", as it was described on Twitter by one journalist from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, is now over with his death on Saturday, aged 85. History, by and large, has already made its judgment on many aspects of a man whose personality earned him the nickname "the Bulldozer".

Sharon died where he had lain for most of his last years, in an 18-bed ward where he was guarded by state security.

A physically brave, impetuous and ruthless soldier, he was shot in the stomach by Jordanian soldiers during fighting for the police fort at Latruncorrect as a young lieutenant in May 1948, in a series of engagements on the road to Jerusalem that are one of the founding legends of the Israeli state. But for each story of courage there was a more troubling counterpoint. In 1953 Sharon would lead Unit 101 during an infamous reprisal raid against the village of Qibya in which dozens of civilians were killed. He was also accused of disobeying orders that led his paratroopers into ambush by Egyptian forces in the Sinai during the Suez crisis in 1956, in which 30 of his soldiers died.

His reputation, as a commander at least, was rehabilitated during the Yom Kippur war in 1973 when Sharon, 45, was recalled to lead the dash across the canal. The controversy that so often swirled about him would not end when he left the army to become a minister in the government of Menachem Begin. It was a career in politics that for a while seemed doomed soon after it had begun, not least because of his role in the devastating 1982 invasion of Lebanon – sold as a quick operation, but which would bog down Israeli soldiers for 18 years at terrible civilian cost.

It was during this period he was found by the Kahan commission – investigating the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut, when Israeli forces allowed Christian Phalangist militiamen into two refugee camps in Beirut to slaughter hundreds of Palestinian refugees – to have been personally negligent in the killings "for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge [and] not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed".

There were other serious marks against him. As foreign minister, he encouraged the seizure by Israeli settlers of Palestinian land, saying: "Everyone there should move, should run, should grab more hills, expand the territory. Everything that's grabbed will be in our hands, everything that we don't grab will be in their hands." He was ultimately responsible for the harsh tactics he advocated during the five-year second Palestinian intifada which started in 2000, in which around 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis died.

Where the jury is still out is over the question of whether, in the few years before his stroke, he was changing – and whether it was in his mind to deliver a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement. In speeches late in his life, Sharon would suggest he was open to compromise. "I am prepared to make painful concessions," he would say, "but I will never sacrifice Israel's security."

For those who have argued that he was a transformed man in his 70s, who could have ended the occupation, the key piece of evidence is his order to evacuate the Israeli settlements in Gaza in 2005, a decision that infuriated the settler movement.

But that order was as much a soldier's judgment as a political one. The Gaza settlements, squeezed into one of the most populous places on the planet, were costly to protect and oddly pointless. As a chess move it was the sacrifice of a small piece to protect the settlements on the West Bank. Could he have gone further and ordered a withdrawal from the West Bank as well? Perhaps not. Sharon portrayed his "disengagement" plan that saw Gaza evacuated as a step to reduce tension between Israelis and Palestinians, but significantly it was accompanied by construction of a massive separation barrier in the West Bank – which Sharon approved after initially resisting –and that many saw as an attempt to unilaterally draw final borders.

One thing is unavoidable, whether seen through the prism of admiration as "Arik the king" or vituperation as "the butcher", Sharon forged his path on the battlefield through the force of his personality, an extraordinary self-belief of his place in history and in his importance. In a rare interview with the Observer three years before his stroke, he painted himself as he wanted to be remembered – as a member of the only generation he believed that had the right to shape his country's future – those who had fought most bitterly in its wars from 1948. "The right thing," he said then, "will be if someone from our generation who has seen everything we saw. It is our generation's role to try to achieve this peace. It is a result of things we have seen. I think that makes it easier to do. It was something I had to try to solve.

"As one who participated in all the wars of the state of Israel, I saw the horror of wars. I believe I understand the importance of peace, not more but not less than many of the politicians who speak about peace, but never had this experience. I saw these things."

Sharon was clear even then where most of the hard compromises should lie – not on the Israeli but the Palestinian side of any negotiation. "Once [it has] been completely quiet and the weapons have been taken from them and given to a third party to be taken out of the Palestinian Authority area and destroyed, if [the Palestinian Authority] takes serious steps and stops incitement and educating for peace, [then] I believe Israel will be able to … I mentioned the Palestinian state? … I mean no military; a demilitarised state.

"I said without final borders because the final borders should only be agreed on the third stage, the final stage. I think in this plan – the plan is called a performance-based plan – things should be fully implemented. You don't move from one stage or sub-stage to the next one unless the former one been fully implemented."

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