[Mb-civic] For Sharon, A Fearless Crossing - Lally Weymouth - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

For Sharon, A Fearless Crossing

By Lally Weymouth
Monday, January 9, 2006; A19

He was finished. In the early 1980s, when I first met Ariel Sharon, he 
was a once-great general who was widely blamed for Israel's failed war 
in Lebanon and for the slaughter of Palestinian refugees by Christian 
militias in the Sabra and Shattila camps outside Beirut. An Israeli 
investigating committee found him "indirectly" responsible for the 
massacres and forced his resignation as minister of defense. He had 
become virtually a pariah -- banned even from such mundane affairs as 
the July Fourth cocktail party hosted by the U.S. ambassador.

In his mind, he was still a defender of Israel, but Israel did not want 
him. It was in America, as it turned out, that he found his chance for 
vindication. In 1984 Sharon sued Time magazine for libel: The magazine 
had written that he was directly involved in the Sabra and Shattila 
massacres. As he and his devoted wife, Lily, trudged daily to the 
courthouse in New York's Foley Square, the Israeli press corps saw what 
we American journalists failed to grasp -- that this was much more than 
just a libel trial: If Sharon emerged victorious, it would be the first 
step in his political comeback.

One day during a break in the trial I was interviewing him in a backroom 
of the courthouse. Suddenly, he began to sing a little song. He 
translated the Hebrew lyrics for me: "All the world is a very narrow 
bridge, and the important thing is not to be afraid to fall." Sharon 
looked me in the eye. "I'm not afraid to say what I think," he said, "or 
to fight for what I believe."

He won his fight in the New York courthouse, and, little by little, he 
began working his way back through the labyrinth of Israeli politics as 
only he could. He was both charming and secretive, steely and blessed 
with a politician's encyclopedic memory for personal details. He was 
also a man of enormous appetites. He loved good food and good gossip -- 
lots of both. He loved his family -- Lily, who died in 2000, and his two 
sons, Omri and Gilad, and his grandchildren. After Lily was gone, he was 
lonely, and he talked politics and personalities on the phone late at 
night with those he trusted.

The year of the victory over Time, Sharon became the architect of a 
national unity government with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir as 
rotating prime ministers. Sharon took on the job of minister of housing 
and construction, and in that post and others he became the father of 
the settlement movement, establishing Jewish communities all over the 
West Bank.

Sharon drove me around the West Bank one day. As we lunched under an 
olive tree, he spread out his maps and explained why Jews should be able 
to live anywhere in "Greater Israel," as he and others called it. This 
was in fact a little ritual he conducted for anyone who would listen, 
but it was not just for show or for persuasion -- it came from his heart.

The story of Israel in the 1990s was one of failed peace overtures. 
Sharon watched and waited, serving in different governments and 
eventually coming to head the Likud Party. But his hour did not come 
until after he made a highly controversial visit to the Temple Mount in 
East Jerusalem in September 2000. The visit triggered riots, and, 
predictably, Sharon's critics blamed him for inflaming the Palestinians. 
But intelligence officials were to conclude that the late Yasser Arafat 
and Co. had planned the violence.

In any event, as chaos spread, Sharon rose to prime minister in 2001. 
The pariah had become his nation's leader. And it soon transpired that 
the country's most famous hawk was making the transition to statesman -- 
that he was actively pushing the peace process.

War -- its horrors, not some romantic vision of its glamour -- was never 
far from Sharon's mind. In interview after interview, he explained to me 
that he wanted peace because he had been a warrior, and warriors knew 
things that mere politicians could not.

He spoke from deep personal experience. "I saw all the horrors of war," 
he told me in an interview just after he became prime minister. "I 
participated in all the wars of Israel. In every battle I was in the 
hardest parts . . . I lost my best friends in battles, and I was 
seriously injured twice. I felt all those terrible pains in hospitals. I 
had to take decisions of life and death of others and of myself. 
Therefore, I believe that I understand the importance of peace better 
than the politicians who speak about peace but never had the experience 
that I had. . . . But peace is a serious deed. It's not an election 
gimmick. And peace should provide security for the Jewish people."

In power, Sharon showed that the charm could often trump the steeliness 
-- or at least mask it long enough for him to forge both a consensus in 
Israel and a close relationship with the American government. One of the 
marks of great leadership is the capacity to undo what one has done if 
it can contribute to the greater good. Sharon had the courage to 
dismantle the very settlements he had built.

About a year and a half ago, I went to talk to Sharon at the farm he 
loved so. I asked him why he had taken the risks of turning on the 
settlers and daring to suggest unilateral disengagement -- steps that 
could have ended not only his political career but his life. I had 
spoken with senior intelligence officials who spelled out the threats 
right-wing Israelis were making on the prime minister's life. His 
response: "I don't worry about my life. Arabs have always wanted to act 
against me, but now the Jews are doing this. For me, it is a strange 
situation. As one who defended Jews all his life, I now have to be 
secured against Jews. But I am fully committed to the plan." There was a 
pause, then he continued: "I believe we have to find a solution to the 
situation here. The left cannot do it. The right is against it. I felt 
it was my responsibility to bring an answer to the problem."

In his mid-seventies, his body began to fail him. He had withdrawn from 
Gaza and abandoned the Likud Party he founded. Yet, against all 
conventional wisdom, Sharon looked poised to sweep to victory as head of 
his new Kadima party. After his first stroke -- a mild one -- a month 
ago, 91 percent of Israelis said that his health would not influence 
their vote in the upcoming election. Although he never spelled out the 
details of the settlement he had in mind, the Israeli people trusted him.

In the Bible, when the warrior Joshua becomes leader of Israel, God 
tells him: "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid." Ariel 
Sharon -- warrior and leader -- always heeded those words. As he sang to 
me all those years go, he has never been afraid.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/08/AR2006010801163.html
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