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Ariel Sharon Personified Israel's Formative Era

(Wall Street Journal) Michael B. Oren - Ariel Sharon has clearly ended his term as Israel's prime minister. His passing from public life represents not only the fall of the pre-eminent figure in Israeli politics but, more fundamentally, the conclusion of the formative era in Israel's history - a period he personified. Sharon has been intimately identified with every major event in that history. An infantry officer in the desperate battle for the Jerusalem corridor in the 1948 War of Independence, leader of the paratroopers in the 1956 Sinai campaign, he rose to the rank of general and commanded divisions in the Six-Day War of 1967 and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As a government minister, he was the architect of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and the primary force behind the settlement movement. With the sole exception of Shimon Peres, he has been a member of the Knesset longer than any other Israeli. Sharon, more than any single Israeli, represented the finest ideals of the Jewish state - its heroism, resilience, and versatility. The writer is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.
2006-01-06 00:00:00
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