The Sharon I loathed changed dramatically two years ago;
but just how far was he travelling towards reconciliation?
Amos Oz
Saturday January 7, 2006
The Guardian
Ariel Sharon lived much of his life like a farmer-soldier. He was like one of the Old Testament judges of Israel. First defending his own village from attackers and marauders, then chasing his enemies, conquering and destroying their villages, then building his own new villages, then defending the new ones, then chasing the enemies again, and round about, like a vicious circle.
Back in his youth it began with armed skirmishes of shepherd boys that evolved over the years into huge battles with thousands of tanks on each side. Yet the man Sharon remained the same throughout the war of independence in 1948 and the Yom Kippur war in 1973 and in the war in Lebanon in 1982 and in the project of building settlements. Throughout his life, from boyhood until old age, he maintained that that which cannot be done with force can be done with extra-force. He maintained that we Israelis can create more and more facts on the ground that the Arabs will have to swallow and the world will eventually have to recognise.
He was the man of muscle.
We remember him in the blood-stained white bandage in the Suez Canal threatening to unleash the wrath of the legions against the politicians if they dared to make even one small concession to the Arabs.
>snip
One thing, however, Sharon never succeeded in doing, not even when he evacuated Gaza to the last inch. He never really sat down with the Palestinians to try to talk with them the way one neighbour speaks to the other neighbour. Not even the way one godfather sits down with another godfather after a long feud. Ariel Sharon is leaving us even as he is signalling to us - I understand my mistakes. I finally tried to mend them, but life was just too short.
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