Well Hated, Exit Sharon

If Ariel Sharon ever wanted to leave the world universally loved, he obviously gave up long ago. But it is clear that until the end, he has done all he can to leave an indellible mark on his region. And while he may not actually die at this time, he has suffered a stroke that will propel him out of Israeli politics for the last time. Of course, he's been counted out before. In 1974, when he resigned from electoral politics just a year after founding the Likud Party; in 1983 after he was demoted following the Sabra and Chatila massacres; and in 1996 when the "new generation" of Likud leaders took over under Bibi Netanyahu. Like Arafat, he's hard to put away.

One indication of how controversial a figure was Sharon is which two "world leaders" (of questionable constituency) have hailed his death as something less than a tragedy: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Pat Robertson. Not long ago, fundamentalist Zionist-Orthodox Jews were calling for his head as well.

Sharon's life was made for the silver screen. Whether they can convince Robert Duvall to put on 50 kilos for the part is a seperate issue. Here are some of the high (and low) -lights:

• Sharon joined the Jewish paramilitary at age 14 to fight British and Arabs.
• He created and led the first Israeli special forces unit, which killed enemy civilians on an alarming scale.
• His first wife died in 1962; his first son five years later while playing with guns. Then he married his wife's sister.
• He led the bloody operation at Mitla Pass during the Suez War in 1956 and fell from favor for excessively aggressive tactics.
• In 1973 he founded the Likud Party, Labour's first real competition.
• A month later, he became a war hero by disobeying orders and taking troops into Africa to hasten the end of the 1973 October War.
• In 1974 he quit politics in a huff, and spent three years trying to beg back in.
• In 1977, he formed his second political party, Shlomtzion, for the most militant of settlers, and then merged it with Likud.
• As Minister of Agriculture, Sharon doubled the number of settlements.
• As Minister of Defense, Sharon convinced his superiors to let him go a few kilometers into Lebanon. He ignored his mandate and conquered Beirut, where he allowed Lebanese Christians to massacre Palestinians in refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila.
• He was stripped of his portfolio, but not demoted from the cabinet, where he remained whenever Likud was in power, constantly trying to gain control of the party.
• Sharon sparked the al-Aqsa Intifada with a September, 2000, publicity stunt featuring a fully-armed excursion onto the Muslim side of temple mount. (Note: sparked, not caused; the causes were much deeper).
• I portrayed Sharon in a 2000 simulation, and was told by my professor that a collapse of Barak's government and subsequent election of Sharon was unrealistic.
• Barak's government fell a month later, and Sharon was elected.
• In 2004, Sharon and his second son underwent a damaging international fraud investigation.
• In 2005, Sharon expelled all settlers from the Gaza Strip.
• Less than two months ago, Sharon broke with Likud and formed his third political party, Kadima, as a new center in Israeli politics.

To me, the question that emerges from Sharon's life is whether he had a master plan all these years or was just flying by the seat of his pants. It's clear that he's not a man who considers compromise or following orders an important part of leadership. Whether Kadima takes off and whether future leaders continue the non-negotiated solution to "the Palestinian Question" will show whether Sharon had a real movement behind him, or merely an awed following. Honestly, I'd gotten to like the man; as dark as his heart may be, he was the first Middle Eastern leader in a while to understand the salient fact on which any solution to the conflict rests: Israel holds all the cards.