(New Republic) Michael B. Oren - Raised in a secular Labor environment, Ariel Sharon was never nurtured on religious or conservative ideology, and, for all his opposition to a return to Israel's pre-1967 borders, he repeatedly conceded territories captured in the Six-Day War. Sharon is actually a Mapainik. Mapai was the dominant Zionist movement in pre-Israel Palestine and the ruling political party for the first decades after Israel's independence. Mapai members were renowned for their pragmatism, for knowing when to compromise and consolidate their gains while hoping to expand them in the future.
2005-02-07 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive