Ariel Sharon

Overview

Ariel Sharon (February 26, 1928 – January 11, 2014) was an Israeli military commander and statesman who served as prime minister from 2001 until a major stroke ended his active leadership in 2006. Known as Arik, he spent more than 25 years in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and became one of the most consequential figures in the military and political history of Israel. His career stretched from the 1948 Arab–Israeli War through the Second Intifada. He commanded troops in the Suez Crisis and the Six-Day War, and led an Israeli crossing of the Suez Canal during the Yom Kippur War.

Sharon’s political career included service in the Knesset and several cabinet ministries. As defense minister, he oversaw the 1982 Lebanon War. He resigned that portfolio in 1983 after an Israeli government commission found him indirectly responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre, which Lebanese Phalangist militiamen committed. As prime minister, he directed an Israeli counteroffensive against terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada and later ordered the unilateral removal of Israeli forces and Jewish communities from Gaza. That decision divided Likud, prompting him to leave the party and establish the centrist Kadima party in 2005.

Early life

Sharon was born in Kfar Malal on February 26, 1928, before Israel’s independence. He joined the Haganah in 1942 at age 14. During Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, he commanded an infantry company in the Alexandroni Brigade. This early service placed him among the generation whose military careers began during the founding of the state. His subsequent rise through the IDF reflected sustained experience in infantry operations, command training, armored warfare, and senior staff appointments.

In 1953, Sharon founded and led Unit 101, an IDF commando unit that carried out retaliatory operations against Arab cross-border attackers. The unit became an important stage in his emergence as a commander associated with initiative and offensive action. Sharon later commanded paratroopers and fought in the 1956 Sinai Campaign. He attended Britain’s Camberley Staff College in 1957. Between 1958 and 1962, he served as an infantry brigade commander and then commanded the IDF Infantry School. He studied law at Tel Aviv University during his military career, adding civilian legal study to his command training.

Sharon became head of the IDF Northern Command staff in 1964 and head of the Army Training Department in 1966. In the 1967 Six-Day War, he commanded an armored division. He became head of the Southern Command staff in 1969 and resigned from the army in June 1972. These appointments gave him experience across the IDF’s regional commands and its training system before his return to wartime service the following year.

Career

Israel recalled Sharon to active service during the 1973 Yom Kippur War to command an armored division. His troops crossed the Suez Canal, a defining episode in Israel’s reversal of its early battlefield losses. The crossing helped change the course of the war and became central to Sharon’s reputation as a military commander. His wartime role also became a subject of dispute. After the ceasefire, Sharon, Shmuel Gonen, Haim Bar-Lev, and David Elazar figured in a bitter public argument over the campaign’s conduct. In November 1973, Sharon criticized the army leadership’s preparations and wartime decisions in interviews with three major international newspapers.

Sharon was elected to the Knesset in December 1973 but resigned about a year later. In 1975, he served as security adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He returned to the Knesset in 1977 on the Shlomzion ticket, then joined Herut after the election. Prime Minister Menachem Begin appointed him agriculture minister, a position he held from 1977 to 1981. He pursued agricultural cooperation with Egypt as the two countries moved toward peace. Sharon advised Begin to accept removal of Israeli communities from the Sinai Peninsula to secure agreement with Anwar Sadat, and he later implemented removals there, including some by force.

Sharon became defense minister in 1981. In November of that year, he secured Israel’s first strategic cooperation agreement with the United States. He also helped restore diplomatic ties with African countries that had severed relations with Israel during the Yom Kippur War and helped bring thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel through Sudan. His defense portfolio encompassed both military planning and these wider diplomatic and humanitarian efforts.

Following his resignation as defense minister in 1983, Sharon remained in the cabinet for a time. He served as minister of industry and trade from 1984 to 1990 and concluded Israel’s free trade agreement with the United States in 1985. He became minister of national infrastructure in 1996 and worked on joint ventures with Jordan and Egypt. In 1998, he became foreign minister. After Benjamin Netanyahu resigned as Likud leader in 1999, Sharon became interim leader; Likud elected him chairman that September.

Israeli voters elected Sharon prime minister on February 6, 2001. His government confronted the Second Intifada, expanded security operations, and built a barrier through Judea and Samaria to prevent terrorist infiltration into Israel. Sharon also pursued diplomatic contacts while maintaining Israel’s security demands. Saudi Arabia sent him a message through Oman asking Israel to avoid rejecting its peace initiative outright. Sharon accepted the request conveyed through Sultan Qaboos bin Said and declined media interviews on the initiative. During a 2005 visit, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met Sharon.

In 2003, Sharon announced a plan for unilateral disengagement from Gaza. His cabinet and the Knesset approved it, and the evacuation began on August 17, 2005. Israel removed its forces and every Jewish community from Gaza, including the communities of Gush Katif; about 8,000 Jewish residents were uprooted. The plan also included removals in northern Samaria. Sharon carried it out without a negotiated peace settlement, despite resistance within his governing camp. The dispute over Gaza split Likud. In November 2005, Sharon left the party and founded Kadima, presenting it as a centrist vehicle for his security and political program.

Ideology and statements

Sharon’s positions changed across a long career in which he supported Jewish communities in Gaza and Judea and Samaria before ordering the removal of Gaza’s communities as prime minister. He argued that Israel had to act on its own security interests when negotiations failed to produce an agreement. His 2005 disengagement was therefore a unilateral decision, not the completion of a negotiated peace. Sharon maintained that Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state required difficult choices, while insisting on security measures against terrorist organizations.

His approach to Gaza drew strong opposition within Likud and among residents who faced removal. Sharon nevertheless secured government and parliamentary approval and proceeded with the evacuation. The decision marked a sharp break with much of his earlier political base and explained the creation of Kadima. His new party combined support for Israel’s national character with demands for security and the disarmament of terrorist groups. Sharon’s willingness to enforce removals in both Sinai and Gaza showed that he could accept the dismantling of Israeli communities when he judged it necessary for a broader national policy.

Sharon’s public statements also reflected disputes over military accountability. Following the 1973 war, he openly challenged senior army leaders over preparations and wartime decisions. During the debate over Gaza disengagement, he defended unilateral action before Likud members and the Knesset, even as the policy threatened his standing within the party he led. These interventions made his disagreements with military and political colleagues part of Israel’s public decision-making rather than private disputes alone.

Role in attacks or conflicts

Sharon fought in several of Israel’s major wars. In 1948, he commanded infantry in the struggle for independence. As leader of Unit 101 from 1953, he directed retaliatory operations against cross-border attackers. He commanded paratroopers during the 1956 Sinai Campaign and an armored division during the 1967 Six-Day War. His most celebrated battlefield operation came in 1973, when the armored division under his command crossed the Suez Canal during the Yom Kippur War. The maneuver became a major step toward Israel’s victory after severe early losses.

As defense minister, Sharon oversaw the 1982 Lebanon War, in which Israel struck the PLO’s terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon. Israeli troops advanced beyond the campaign’s initial forty-kilometer objective under his direction. In September 1982, Lebanese Phalangist militiamen murdered residents of the Sabra and Shatila camps. An Israeli government commission found Sharon indirectly responsible and he resigned as defense minister in 1983. The finding concerned his responsibility for failing to anticipate and prevent the Phalangists’ violence; Lebanese Phalangists committed the massacre.

The massacre also prompted a dispute with Time magazine. Time accused Sharon of encouraging the killings and illustrated its accusation with a Jewish star dripping blood. Sharon sued for libel and won a symbolic judgment. The case became one part of the wider argument over his conduct in Lebanon, alongside the Israeli commission’s finding and his resignation. Both the massacre and the commission’s judgment remained central to assessments of his defense ministry.

In September 2000, Sharon visited the Temple Mount after receiving permission from Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the site’s waqf leader. Arab leaders used the visit as a public pretext for the Second Intifada. PLO cabinet minister Imad Faluji later said the uprising had been planned after the July 2000 peace talks failed. Sharon’s authorized visit did not spontaneously cause the violence. The episode became a prominent point of contention during the campaign that brought him to office in 2001.

As prime minister, Sharon directed an Israeli counteroffensive during the Second Intifada. The IDF renewed operations in areas controlled by the Arab authority and struck terrorist leaders and operatives. His government isolated Yasser Arafat in his Ramallah compound and built a security barrier through Judea and Samaria to impede infiltration into Israel. These measures responded to a sustained campaign of terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. They also made security the defining issue of Sharon’s early years as prime minister.

The 2005 Gaza withdrawal did not end attacks from the territory. Hamas, a terrorist organization, continued firing rockets and carrying out terrorist attacks against Israeli cities after Israel removed its forces and Jewish residents. Hamas violently seized power in Gaza in 2007. Those developments shaped later debate over Sharon’s decision: supporters emphasized his willingness to remove Israeli communities in pursuit of a different security and political future, while opponents pointed to continuing attacks from Gaza. Sharon’s stroke prevented him from directing Israel’s response to these later events.

Death or current status

Sharon suffered a minor stroke in December 2005. On January 4, 2006, he suffered a major stroke and brain hemorrhage that ended his active leadership of Israel. His duties passed to Ehud Olmert, who subsequently led Kadima. Sharon never returned to political office. He died on January 11, 2014, after years of severe incapacity.

His death drew sharply different reactions. Public celebrations took place in Gaza, and Hamas leaders issued hostile statements. Shortly after Sharon’s funeral on January 13, 2014, two rockets fired from Gaza landed in the western Negev. They caused no casualties or damage. The attacks underscored the continued violence from Gaza years after the disengagement he had directed.

Legacy

Sharon left a record that spans Israel’s founding wars, later military campaigns, cabinet government, and a major change in policy toward Gaza. The 1973 Suez Canal crossing established his standing as a wartime commander. His 1982 defense ministry remains inseparable from the Israeli commission’s finding of indirect responsibility for Sabra and Shatila and his subsequent resignation. As prime minister, his counteroffensive and security barrier became defining responses to the Second Intifada.

His decision to uproot Jewish communities and withdraw Israeli forces from Gaza produced an equally lasting political division. It broke his relationship with Likud, led to Kadima’s formation, and showed his readiness to act unilaterally when he concluded negotiations could no longer determine Israel’s security and future. The continued attacks from Gaza after the withdrawal formed part of that legacy. Sharon’s major stroke in 2006 brought his active career to an abrupt end before the party he founded faced its first national election under another leader.