Ariel Sharon

Biography

Ariel Sharon was born on February 26, 1928, in Kfar Malal, a moshav in British Mandate Palestine. He became one of Israel's most decorated and controversial military officers, fighting in the 1948 War of Independence, commanding paratroopers in the 1950s Qibya operation (a raid on a Jordanian village that killed 69 civilians, many of them women and children), serving as a senior commander in 1967 and 1973 before entering politics in the 1970s. By 1981 he had become Defense Minister under Menachem Begin. Sharon's role in Lebanon was the most consequential and controversial chapter of his long career. He conceived and championed the 1982 invasion as a means to reshape the entire Middle East strategic order — not merely to push the PLO back from Israel's northern border as the cabinet was told, but to expel the PLO from Lebanon entirely, install Bashir Gemayel as a friendly president, and potentially sign a Lebanese-Israeli peace treaty. He exceeded his cabinet mandate, pushing Israeli forces toward Beirut in a drive the cabinet had not explicitly authorized. Sharon's greatest personal catastrophe came during the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The Kahan Commission of inquiry, established after international outcry over the massacre, found Sharon bore 'personal responsibility' for the killings because he had authorized the Phalangist militias to enter the camps knowing they harbored revenge motives following Bashir Gemayel's assassination. The commission recommended his dismissal from the Defense Ministry, which Begin accepted. Sharon remained in the cabinet as a minister without portfolio, demonstrating both his political resilience and the limits of Israeli democratic accountability. Sharon returned to prominence in the 1990s and 2000s, serving as Foreign Minister and ultimately Prime Minister from 2001 to 2006, during which he authorized the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza — a stunning policy reversal from a man who had championed settlements throughout his career. He suffered a massive stroke in January 2006 and died in a persistent vegetative state on January 11, 2014.

Key Battles