Ariel Sharon
Israel's
new Prime Minister - a biography
election of February 6, 2001: Ariel Sharon 62.5%, Ehud Barak 37.4%.
Article added on February 13, 2001
New Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who had crashed his opponent from the
Likud Party in February's election, has invited Ehud Barak to become Defense Minister and Shimon Peres to take
over as Minister of Foreign Affairs. The idea of a government of national
unity seems to be the best solution possible right now, with Peace Nobel
Prize winner Peres as the best choice to help calming down a situation
which is in danger to go definitively out of control. Although more than
once in history, a hawk has turned into a dove, as the example of the
assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Rabin has shown, it is doubtful that
Sharon, the "Bulldozer", will be such a politician.
Negotiations with Palestinian leaders won't
be easy because Sharon remains inflexible on key points. Regarding Jerusalem,
the Prime Minister said that it has been "the capital of the Jewish people for the past 3,000 years" and
that it is "the united
and indivisible capital of Israel", "for all eternity".
This is no basis for a future agreement and shows Sharon's bizarre
understanding of history. Sharon also puts in doubt Camp David
as a basis for peace negotiations.
Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat is a man
who has only partly managed to step from guerilla leader to head of state.
Corruption, lack of transparency and absence of rule of law reign in his
"empire". Not only Hamas and Hizbollah are out of his control,
even his own Fatah does not always seem to follow Arafat.
On both sides, the Israeli and the
Palestinian, imbalanced people seem to have gained the upper hand. Jerusalem
could be a city uniting peoples and religions. Jews, Christians and Muslim
could set a sign of tolerance. Instead, terror and dogmatism reign. The
number of rational politicians and "simple" citizens seems to
decline from day to day.
People around the world wonder how the
Israeli people could prefer Sharon over Barak. There are multiple reasons:
A lot of Israeli do not trust Arafat. They were afraid that Barak was
about to make too many concessions. Arafat himself was badly advised to
turn down offers Barak made in recent months. Barak's coalition was not
very trustworthy either. The ultra-orthodox
Shas-Party blackmailed the government to satisfy the demands of its
clientele. In August 2000,
Foreign Minister
David Levy stepped down because of Barak's concessions to Arafat. Last but
not least, Barak neglected domestic politics, especially unemployment and
criminality. And the 13% of Israeli Arabs who had voted with 95% for Barak
in May 1999 refused to follow him once more. Massive abstentions in the
February election resulted from this. Hope in this deadlock between
Israelis and Palestinians may come from the new American administration,
with Secretary of State Colin Powell starting to travel the region at the
end of February.
Ariel Sharon (Scheinermann)
was born in Palestine in 1928. At the age of fourteen, he joined the Haganah, the
Jewish underground military organization (1920-1948). During the War of
Independence (1948), he commanded an infantry company. In 1953, he founded
and led the special "commando 101" unit which carried out
retaliatory operations. Sharon's unconventional methods cost a lot of
lives. In 1956, he was appointed commander of a paratroop corps and in the
Sinai Campaign, he commanded the conquest of the Mitla peak, which
involved heavy losses. Officers under his command revolted against him. An
investigation into the refusal to obey orders followed. In 1957, Sharon
attended the Camberley Staff College in Great Britain. From 1958 to 1962,
he served as infantry brigade commander, later as infantry training
academy commander and attended Law School at Tel Aviv University. In 1964, he was appointed
head of the Northern Command Staff and, in 1966, head of the Army Training
Department. In 1967, he commanded an armored division in the Six Day War,
where he showed tactical brilliance. In 1969, he became head of the
Southern Command Staff. In the 1970s, he submitted the Gaza Strip to
Israeli military control with ruthless methods. Sharon resigned from the
army in June 1972, but was recalled to active military service in 1973
during the Yom Kippur War when he commanded a tank division. His crossing
of the Suez canal with his tank division proved decisive in the war. At an
early point in time, he favored the civil administration of the Sinai by
Egypt and employed himself to achieve good relations with Cairo. Sharon's frequent refusal to obey orders hindered him from rising to
the top of the military.
In 1973, Sharon initiated the
founding of the
Likud block, composed by right-wing and center-right parties. In December 1973, he was elected to the Knesset and favored
negotiations with the PLO. He objective was not to integrate the
Palestinians into Israel, but to push them into Jordan in order to bring
down the King's regime. In 1974, Sharon became a member of Menachem
Begin's Cherut party. In 1975, Sharon served for a short time as Yitzhak
Rabin's Security Adviser. In 1977, he was again
elected to the Knesset for the Shlomzion Party, founded by him because of
divergences with Rabin. Following the elections,
he joined the Herut party and was appointed Minister of Agriculture by
Prime Minister Begin. Sharon pushed for the settlement in Cisjordan,
trying to hinder a later secession by the occupied territories. He had
doubts regarding the peace process with Egypt but finally ordered the
clearing of the city of Yamit and its return to Egypt. Today, Sharon
considers this his most important error. Sharon was against the Camp
David agreement of September 1978 which foresaw an autonomous status for the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip and opened up the road to the
Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty of 1979.
From 1981 to 1983, he served
as Minister of Defense. In June 1982, Sharon started the War against
Lebanon. He is said to have misled the entire cabinet more than once. He
declared the clearing of a 40 km strip on the border his primary goal but
secretly, he is said to have prepared a broad-based war against Lebanon
with the objective of installing a pro-Israeli regime and chasing or
destroying the PLO. In September 1982, one
day after the assassination of Lebanon's newly elected President, Bashir
Gemayel, Sharon gave Phalange access to the Palestinian camps of Sabra and
Chatila near Beirut. They were supposed to find alleged terrorists but
committed a massacre in which between 700 and 2000 Palestinians were
murdered. A commission in Israel investigated Sharon's role in these events.
The judges accused him of an important wrong decision without holding him
directly responsible for the massacre. Sharon had to leave his office and
was declared unfit to ever hold the office of Minister of Defense again. But he remained a member of the cabinet without
a portfolio. Even today, Sharon calls the War in Lebanon a justified
invasion.
In 1984, Sharon became Minister
of Trade and Industry in the government of national unity. In 1986, he
moved into an apartment in the Muslim part of Jerusalem, one of the
reasons for the outbreak of the first Intifada. In 1992, Sharon switched
to the post of Minister of Housing and Construction, where he remained
until 1992. In both positions, he pursued a protectionist policy which
proved disastrous for the Israeli economy. He also opposed the recovery
program instigated by Prime Minister Shimon Peres which freed Israel from
hyperinflation. As Minister of Housing and Construction, he favored the
construction of thousands of prefabricated houses for remote villages.
They remained unoccupied and cost the state billions. In the 13th Knesset,
Sharon served on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Sharon was one
of those within the Likud who opposed Rabin's peace plan. In this heated
climate, Rabin was finally assassinated. In the
government of Benjamin Netanyahu, Sharon served as Minister of National
Infrastructure from 1996 to 1998 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from
1998 to 1999, until Barak's electoral victory. In the position as Foreign
Minister, Sharon favored relations with Russia to the
detriment of the strategic alliance with the United States. He was
re-elected into the 15th Knesset in May 1999 and serves as temporary
chairman of the Likud party since the resignation of Netanyahu. Last September,
he visited the Temple Mount which was the reason for the outbreak of
the second Intifada. As one can easily understand, the widower with two
sons, Ariel Sharon, is nicknamed "Bulldozer". He represents a
current within Zionism which is in favor of building "Erez-Israel",
a "Greater Israel" within biblical borders.
On February 3, 2002, Sami
Aldeeb, doctor of laws, a
Christian of Palestinian origin, sent us the
following letter: A
wall or Justice around Jerusalem?
Newspapers report that Israeli politicians are planning to build a wall
around Jerusalem to improve security for the city. Such a plan proves that
these politicians are not able or don't like to understand what are the
reasons of insecurity in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel.
There are two main reasons behind the insecurity in Israel. The first is
the injustice. Let us remember that Israel has destroyed 385 Palestinian
villages, including the village of Emmaus, which has been razed by
Israeli-American bulldozers and transformed into a picnic place called
Canada Park. The inhabitants of these villages have been expelled and many
of them live in 61 concentrations camps as cattle inside Palestine/Israel
or in the surrounding countries. Instead of allowing their return to their
lands, Israel continues its policy of destruction, humiliation, occupation
and killing. Daily Israeli-American bulldozers, protected by the Israeli
Army, are razing houses and pushing the population into despair. Those
that Israeli politicians call "terrorists" are the sons of those
desperate refugees.
The second reason is linked with the personality of Mr. Sharon. This man
is thirsty of blood and destruction. He proved it in the occupation of
Beirut and the massacres of Sabra and Shatilla, and now in the West Bank
and Gaza. As this instinct is contagious, it is extending as rabies among
Israeli generals as well as among the Palestinian hopeless youngsters.
Instead of creating a wall around Jerusalem, transforming the city into a
large prison for its inhabitants, it would be less expensive and more
efficient to build four walls around Mr. Sharon or to send him back to his
country of origin, Russia. This will improve the security not only to
Jerusalem, but also to all Israel/Palestine and the Middle East region. In
the same time, Israeli politicians must end the occupation, the
humiliation and the destruction, and find a solution to the Palestinian
refugees based on justice and not frustration. This means that Israel has
to allow them to return to their lands and to construct their 385
destroyed villages. 2700 years ago, the prophet Isaiah said: "Peace
will be the fruit of justice" (32:17). Without justice, there will
never be peace in the Middle East.
On April 18, 2002, Alon Weinberg sent us the following feedback:
I am talking on behalf of those Israeli people who truly seek peace. I
believe most people in Israel agree that the best solution is two separate
countries. Why then Israel occupies a territory, which brings no benefit
but destruction to both sides? The answer is that Israeli people feel that
they have the right to achieve peace without risking their lives.
I truly believe that most Israeli people want true peace and are also
willing to pay a high price for it. In reality however the right wing
parties in Israel are in a permanent growth. How can this trend be
explained? Why a democratic country uses such a policy? I think that the
main key is to understand the point of view both sides in the conflict. I
do feel that many people don't understand Israel policy because they don't
see the situation in a wide perspective.
The problem has not started today. The occupied territories are a result
of a war between Egypt Syria Jordan and Iraq against Israel. In this war
the Arab nations (who participated in that war) clearly declared that the
war goal is the destruction of Israel. Later on more wars in order to
destroy Israel, and of course I can't mention here all the wars and terror
acts and I am not trying to write a history article. The point is that the
hostility against Israel in the last 50 years includes
so many terror acts war and anti-Israeli propaganda that the Israeli
people lost completely confidence in the Arab nations.
Israel is in a very difficult situation. It is surrounded by hostile
countries (some of them still don't accept Israel existence) and also
under daily terror threat. Some of the worldwide pressure on Israel
especially Arab extremists propaganda only brings frustration and loss of
trust in the Israeli people hearts.
I do accept that Palestinians have rights as humans and as a nation, but
most people in Israel feel that Arab nation foreign policy is just in
order to condemn and attack Israel and not in order to try and solve the
problem.
In the past when the territories weren't under Israeli occupation the
Palestinians weren't accepted by any Arab country and had no rights at
all. They remained in refugee camps when the area was part of Jordan and
Egypt and were also killed in a brutal way when they showed any resistance
(in Jordan thousands Palestinians were killed in the event called
"Black October"). Although today those countries are so
"sympathetic" with the Palestinians.
How can a democratic country deal with terrorists that have no moral
boundary? The problem is that some of the Arab countries support
terrorists that try to kill Israelis civilians and at the same time accuse
Israel for unmoral conduct after they try to capture those terrorists
while they use
Palestinian civilians for protection.
The main point in what I am trying to say is that Israel truly wants
peace, but before it is urged to make big compromises and before asking
Israel to trust the Palestinian people and more Arab countries, people in
Israel should feel secure. They should feel that the other side intention
is for
real peace, in practical means and not only in vocal words, in Arabic and
not only in English by diplomatic resources.
I think that it is unfair that people who live in secure countries without
similar problems rush to criticize Israel and think that the only problem
is Israel reluctance to withdraw from the territories.
That's easy to say when you live elsewhere not when you live in Tel-Aviv
and need to trust people that support terror and declare that their real
intention is not only a state for the Palestinians but the destruction of
Israel. (And of course there are also many Palestinians with real peace
intentions).
The Arab world including the Palestinians should stop the terror and the
propaganda and show that they want real peace so the Israeli people will
feel that they can make peace without risking their lives. Israeli people
point of view on the conflict is shaped not from the last month media but
from a wider perspective.
