Ariel Sharon A Life

Random House. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 2006. Hardcover. 1400065879 . 1.7 x 9.4 x 6.4 Inches; 512 pages; Warrior, statesman, peacemaker&#8211;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&#8217;s life has been as tightly woven into the history of his nation.<br><br>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, to &#8220;always go see what lies over the next hill.&#8221; And for decades to come, Sharon would do just that, forging a life of strength, resilience, and sometimes, according to his detractors, reckless and embittered action, indifferent to the violence it unleashed on his enemies. <br><br>Based on unprecedented access to many of the key players in Sharon&#8217;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&#8217;s War of Independence (in which he was left for dead on the battlefield); assembled Israel&#8217;s first special forces brigade, the wild Unit 101; and led the Lebanon War, the most controversial campaign in Israel&#8217;s history. As a general, he directed military campaigns that are still studied in military academies across the world. <br><br>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; Sharon&#8217;s removal as defense minister after the massacre in the Palestinian refugee camps in Sabra and Shatila; his thirty-year championing of the settlement movement in Gaza and the West Bank; his visit to the Temple Mount in 2000, which lit the fuse for the second Intifada; and his startling decision as prime minister to initiate &#8220;disengagement,&#8221; uprooting settlers, destroying settlements, and dividing his country.<br><br>Sharon&#8217;s personal life has been equally tumultuous and dramatic, as this book grippingly recounts&#8211;his first wife, Margalit, was killed in a car accident; his eldest son, Gur, wounded by an accidental rifle discharge, died in his arms. His second wife, Lily (Margalit&#8217;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. <br><br>Often mired in controversy and scandal, Sharon was a man of inscrutable character, and his epochal life and elusive personality are both vividly portrayed in this book. Sharon was fueled by a rare combination of qualities: courage, love of power, unbridled tenacity, pragmatism, and, above all, a creed that never changed&#8211;complete and uncondtional security for Jews. .