ON A COLD WEDNESDAY NIGHT IN EARLY JANUARY 2006, PRIME MIN-ister Ariel Sharon, seventy-eight years of age, sat in his Sycamore Ranch home amid the desolate beauty of the northern Negev. Only four months had passed since he had redrawn Israel's borders, up-rooting his historic allies, the settlers, from the entire Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements. The general election was three months away. All polls put Sharon and Kadima, the new party he had founded, well ahead of the competition.
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WARRIOR, S TATES,\\IAN, PEACEMAKER--few world leaders have had as dramatic and pivotal a life story as Ariel Sharon. And as this riveting new biography shows, perhaps no modern leader's life has been as tightly woven into the history of his nation.
Born in 1928 and raised in spartan circumstances on a kibbutz, Ariel Sharon was taught by his parents to take principled stands and then to plow ahead. And for decades to come Sharon would do just that, forging a llfe of strength, resilience, and sometimes, according to his detractors, reckless action.
Based on unprecedented access to many of the key players in Sharon's life, hundreds of interviews, and thousands of pages of documents, Ariel Sharon presents a leader who was first and foremost a military man. Sharon fought in Israel's War of Independence (in which he was left for dead on the battlefield); assembled Israel's first special forces brigade, the wild Unit 101; and led the Lebanon War, the most controversial campaign in Israel's history.As a general, he directed military campaigns that are still studied in military academies across the world.
Yet Sharon was also a political animal. This book explores his fraught relationships with prime ministers David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin, as well as with legendary minister of defense Moshe Dayan; his thirty-year championing of the settlement movement in Gaza and the West Bank; and his startling decision to initiate "disengagement," uprooting settlers, destroying settlements, and dividing his country.
Sharon's personal life has been equally tumultuous, as this book grippingly recounts--his first wife, Margalit,was killed in a car accident; his eldest son, Gun wounded by an accidental rifle discharge, died in his arms. His second wife, Lily (Margalit's younger sister), died of cancer,concluding one of the great love stories of Israeli public life. And ultimately came the stroke that felled Sharon,removing him from power at a time when the Israeli people needed his leadership most.
Though often mired in controversy and scandal,Sharon was a man of inscrutable character. He was fueled by a rare combination of qualities: courage, love of power,unbridled tenacity, pragmatism, and, above all, a creed that never changed--complete and unconditional security for Jews.
Introduction: The Sharon Code
CHAPTER 1 The Battle of Latrun
CHAPTER 2 Georgian Roots
CHAPTER 3 The Outsiders
CHAPTER 4 An Average Student
CHAPTER 5 In Uniform
CHAPTER 6 Love and War
CHAPTER 7 Unit 101
CHAPTER 8 Qibiya
CHAPTER 9 Commander of the Paratroopers
CHAPTER 10 The Tragedy in Qalqilya
CHAPTER 11 The Mitla Trap
CHAPTER 12 Death Comes Home
CHAPTER 13 A Second Marriage
CHAPTER 14 Fame at Abu Ageila
CHAPTER 15 Gur
CHAPTER 16 Tacit Agreement
CHAPTER 17 Isolating Gaza
CHAPTER 18 A Not-So-Honorable Discharge
CHAPTER 19 Founding the Likud
CHAPTER 20 Shock on Yom Kippur
CHAPTER 21 Crossing the Canal
CHAPTER 22 King of Israel
CHAPTER 23 Political Rookie
CHAPTER 24 The Shlomtzion Debacle
CHAPTER 25 Minister of Agriculture
CHAPTER 26 Defense Minister
CHAPTER 27 The Road to Lebanon
CHAPTER 28 Ensnared in Beirut
CHAPTER 29 Sabra and Shatilla
CHAPTER 30 Alone on the Farm
CHAPTER 31 Minister of Industry and Trade
CHAPTER 32 First Intifada
CHAPTER 33 The Night of the Microphones
CHAPTER 34 Minister of Housing and Infrastructure
CHAPTER 35 Fall from Power
CHAPTER 36 Blunder in Oslo
CHAPTER 37 Rabin's Assassination
CHAPTER 38 Back in Office
CHAPTER 39 Minister of National Infrastructure
CHAPTER 40 Foreign Minister
CHAPTER 41 Likud Chairman
CHAPTER 42 Lily
CHAPTER 43 Opposition Leader
CHAPTER 44 The Temple Mount
CHAPTER 45 Prime Minister
CHAPTER 46 Policy of Restraint
CHAPTER 47 9/11
CHAPTER 48 Defensive Shield
CHAPTER 49 The Road Map
CHAPTER 50 Recession
CHAPTER 51 Landslide Victory
CHAPTER 52 Police Investigations
CHAPTER 53 Trapping Netanyahu
CHAPTER 54 From Aqaba to Geneva
CHAPTER 55 Declaring Disengagement
CHAPTER 56 Referendum Blues
CHAPTER 57 Victory in the Knesset
CHAPTER 58 Traumatic Disengagement
CHAPTER 59 The Big Bang
CHAPTER 60 The Last Battle
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
