A Warrior's Legacy
Brilliant tactician,indomitable adversary, Ariel Sharon was a lion in defense of his nation
Betrayal. While Sharon has carved out a new center among Israelis, there are some who still feel the bitterness of betrayal. "While I pray for his health, and I don't wish what he's going through even on my enemies, I can't forget or forgive his destruction of thousands of homes in Gush Katif [the old settlement bloc in Gaza] and Samaria [the biblical name for the upper West Bank]," said Pinchas Wallerstein, chief strategist for the settler movement. And Pat Robertson, one of the matchmakers in the American evangelical movement's embrace of radical right-wing Christian Zionism, made the startling suggestion that Sharon's stroke was divine retribution. "He was dividing God's land, and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course. .?.?. God says, 'This land belongs to me. You'd better leave it alone,'?" Robertson warned, even while expressing sympathy for the condition of his "good friend."
Ariel Sharon made countless enemies over the course of his long and storied career. At age 75, though, he suddenly summoned the will and vision to reinvent himself as a pragmatist, and one no less daring and singular than the hard-liner he had been for so long. With his remarkable transformation, Sharon won the admiration of the Israeli and western mainstream. "A lot of countries, a lot of people in the world who used to be against us, have changed their minds in the last two years," said Zakaim, the Jerusalem jeweler. This was Sharon's final bequest to his country. He made so much history, and now history is waiting for him.
advertisement
