Die Hard Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon - nee Scheinerman (translated from Yiddish "handsome"). His parents in 1921, moved from Russia to what was then Palestine. At the age of 14, Ariel Sharon, whose entire name was Arik, joined Hagan (Defense), an underground Jewish military organization that opposed British rule in Palestine. He participated in all the wars that the Jewish state, re-created in 1948, had to wage with its neighbors and terrorist Islamist organizations.
It is Sharon who is called the Savior of Israel. In the Doomsday War of October 1973, Egyptian and Syrian troops unexpectedly attacked the Jewish state on the most important Jewish holiday. Sharon, having crossed the head of the famous 143 Armored Brigade through the Suez Canal to the African coast, managed to reverse the initial success of the Egyptian army, the most powerful enemy. His team, in fact, decided the outcome of the war in favor of the Jews.
In one of his interviews, Sharon told about a meeting with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who arrived in Israel in 1977. First of all, the most highly placed Egyptian, later killed by an Islamist for signing a peace treaty with the Jews, expressed a desire to meet with Ariel Sharon. Shaking hands with the famous general, Sadat said: “After your troops crossed the Suez Canal during the 1973 war of the year, we wanted to take you prisoner and threw all our strength against it.” Sharon replied to these words like this: “Take me prisoner now, not as an enemy, but as a friend.”
HALF RUSSIAN
The NVO correspondent met with Sharon at the time of his premiership. Although the conversation was conducted in English and Hebrew, at the very beginning of it, Sharon, demonstrating his knowledge of the “great and mighty,” recited several lines from Pushkin and Lermontov. In fact, the future general and head of government had two native languages: Hebrew and Russian. He recalled that in childhood his mother, Vera Shneyerova, the daughter of a rich man from Mogilyov, read him Russian fairy tales. Sharon's parents met each other at the University of Tbilisi, where both came from Belarus. His father studied as an agronomist, and his mother managed to complete two courses of medical faculty. The mother of Ariel Sharon has Siberian roots. Already in Palestine, she went through the giyur (the process of Judaism) and received the Jewish name of the Court.
The legendary Israeli military leader and politician was proud of his Russian roots. In the fashion of those years, while already in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), he changed his “galut”, Yiddish surname sounding like a German into quite Hebrew - Sharon. Note that "Sharon" (and also with a capital letter) is the name of one of the few fertile plains in the central part of the Promised Land. Apparently, our hero chose this surname because he, the son of the agronomist Shmuel Sheinerman, who graduated from the agronomic faculty of Tbilisi University, wanted to emphasize his peasant roots. And indeed, in the future, Ariel Sharon became a prosperous farmer.
Undoubtedly, Ariel Sharon, a general and statesman, is an era in stories not only Israel, but the whole Middle East. This man received an excellent military and civil education. In the British command and staff college, he defended his thesis on the topic: "The intervention of the army command in tactical decisions on the battlefield: on the experience of Great Britain and Germany." Thanks to the work on this topic, Sharon became a connoisseur of the works of Montgomery and Rommel. Later, in 1966, he graduated from the law faculty of the Hebrew (Hebrew) University in Jerusalem.
In the governments of the Jewish state, he held responsible ministerial posts. In 2001 – 2006, Sharon led the government. Fell into a coma eight years ago, he died on January 11 of this year in the hands of his sons Omri and Gilad.
One cannot but agree with the well-known Israeli publicist Jacob Shaus (by the way, a native of Vilnius, an outstanding athlete, an expert on international drafts), who in the article “Winner”, published immediately after the death of the former head of the Israeli government, wrote: “It just so happened that Ariel Sharon's share of fame, admiration, universal worship, and always followed a number of hatred and lies. ” His personal tragedies include the death of his first wife Margalit in 1962 in a traffic accident, and the death of his first-born Gur in 1967. His second wife, Lilit, sister of Margalit, with whom he lived more than 30 years, died in the year 2002.
FROM THE LEFT FLANG TO THE RIGHT AND BACK
Shalom Yerushalmi, the leading journalist of the Israeli newspaper Maariv, in the article “Ariel Sharon - a brilliant commander and politician”, notes the unusual personality of the former Israeli leader, who showed his remarkable talent not only in military areas, but also in politics. As an example, he cites the creation of Sharon in 1973 on the basis of two small parties, Herut (Freedom) and the Liberal, a powerful center-right political bloc Likud (Soyuz). Only with Sharon at the head, the newly formed bloc began to play a leading role in the political proscenium of the Jewish state. Yerushalmi draws attention to the fact that the political program of Menachem Begin (1913 – 1992; born in Belarus), the first right-wing political leader who occupied the post of prime minister on the political Olympus of the Israeli left in 1977, was formed by Ariel Sharon. At the same time, it is very significant that Sharon himself, having received the deputy mandate, immediately refused it, having decided to concentrate on military affairs.
Ariel Sharon is considered the ideologue of the settlement movement. Thanks to his activity in various ministerial posts, the number of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip has doubled. The development city Ariel, founded in 1978, in Samaria (West Bank) is named after him. The administration of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) requires the dismantling of this city, since, in the opinion of Ramallah, it is located on its territory.
It is important to keep in mind that Sharon was elected the head of the government precisely as the charismatic leader of the right-wing camp. The leaflets that were distributed by his campaign headquarters said: “We are confident that only Sharon will be able to restore the power of Israel, stop the raging terror and achieve a reliable and lasting peace. Today, Israel needs an experienced and strong leader. Today, Israel needs Ariel Sharon! ”Nobody could even then think that, being at the top of power in the Jewish state, the famous commander,“ The Winner ”and“ Savior of Israel ”, would behave quite unexpectedly for a representative of the right-wing camp. In 2005, he initiated “itnakdut” (“unilateral disengagement”), and in September of the same year all Jewish settlements were dismantled in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria. This step of the leader of the right party, whom not only in Israel, but all over the world, was considered a stubborn hawk, is difficult to explain today from the point of view of logic. Indeed, two years before this “initiation”, in 2003, during the election campaign, the same Sharon harshly criticized the idea of disengagement, which his opponent, who headed the Avoda party at that time, also former General Amram Mitsna, put forward. And suddenly such a "left turn" yesterday, the most right of the Israeli politician!
It is impossible to assume that the fearless general was frightened by the attacks of the media, the majority of which hold liberal and leftist positions on the corruption scandals of his sons. In the end, his offspring did not commit any special crimes: the younger, Gilad, did not long work as an adviser (and in fact, an extra for a large salary) from a friend of his father - contractor David Appel. The eldest, Omri, did not quite legally register several companies that financed the Ariel Sharon campaign. As a result, the charges against Gilad were dropped, and Omri spent several months in prison.
Retired Colonel Yaniv Rokhov, who during the premiership of Ariel Sharon worked in the analytical department of the IDF General Staff, told the NVO correspondent: “In principle, Sharon was on the right path. In Gaza, there was an entire Israeli division to protect less than 10 thousands of settlers. And the point is not only that the presence of such a large number of soldiers in the sector overwhelmed by Palestinians cost the treasury enormous sums. The main thing is that Israeli soldiers died almost every month. ” According to Rokhov, "an unexpected illness prevented Sharon from fully implementing his own plan." A former Israeli military analyst believes that this Sharon plan was an immediate crushing attack on the sector if after the withdrawal of the IDF the Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants would have dared to attack the territory of the Jewish state. Ehud Olmert, who took over the post of head of the Israeli government after Sharon, did not have the determination of the Winner. And the IDF’s retaliatory air strikes on rocket and mortar shelling of Israeli cities have never been overwhelming.
The consequence of the Likud split was the creation by Sharon of a new party with a not very clear platform, which he called Kadima (Forward). Despite the sharp "left turn", the Israeli voter continued to believe not only Sharon, but also his "heirs." This is evidenced by the fact that in the elections to the Knesset of the 17-th convocation in March 2006, Kadima received 29 mandates and formed a government. But the voter will not be full of memory for a long time! Continuous shelling from Gaza also did their job. And in the last election, “Kadimov’s” had only two mandates. In this sense, it is quite correct to compare the Kadima Party with the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) headed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Kadima was the party of one person, but the Liberal Democratic Party remains.
A curious comparison by Yaniv Rokhov of the “one-sided disengagement” of Sharon and NEP, introduced by Lenin in Russia. A retired Israeli colonel believes that both Lenin and Sharon did not have time to complete their plans. One due to death, the other due to apoplexy. In the case of Sharon, this blow of death was not much different.
It is also impossible not to take into account the desire of Sharon to please certain political forces on the far right flank. He, an equilibrist politician, opposed the construction of defenses on the border with the PNA. Although similar structures with the Gaza Strip were already built, and the number of terrorist acts committed by Hamas and jihadist militants who could not cross the border fence, completely disappeared. Sharon feared that the ultra-right would accuse him of creating a “new Jewish ghetto” from Israel.
A native of Moscow, Yakov Kedmi (Cossacks), who for a long time led Nativ, the Bureau of Jewish Relations in the Former USSR and Eastern Europe, in a recent book in Hebrew and in Russian, Hopeless Wars, he wrote in an interview Sharon brought heavy accusations of neglecting the security of the Israeli population because of the refusal to build border barriers with the PNA. ” “He could have prevented most of the terrorist attacks (committed from the PNA - ZG) if the barriers were built,” Kedmi continues his thought. “If the considerations of maintaining power and the fear of entering into a confrontation with ultranationalist and religious circles were not more precious to him than the lives of the citizens of Israel.” And that's not all. The former head of Nativ recalls that "he sharply criticized the power of the Sharon family over the state of Israel." Kedmi writes: “I compared the power of the Sharon family to the power of Yeltsin in Russia, when Yeltsin, along with his daughter, her husband, and a handful of people close to him — what was called“ family, ”ruled Russia. I said that Ariel Sharon rules Israel with the help of his sons and they, his sons, determine the state priorities of Israel. ” Heavy accusations! Very heavy! Moreover, they are expressed by a person who, in the same book, states: “I loved Ariel Sharon before adoring him. For many years, this love and worship did not allow me to see the problematic nature of his behavior. ”
ON IT “HANGED ALL THE DOGS”
It is known that Ariel Sharon was not particularly bothered by other people's opinions. However, according to his family and friends, the charge brought against him in 1982 was an exception. While Sharon remained conscious, he could not forget the tragedy of the summer of that year. It was then that the Palestinian militants, led by Yasser Arafat and expelled by King Hussein from Jordan, tried to find shelter in Lebanon and establish their own rules there. They provoked a civil war in the most flourishing Middle Eastern country, while not forgetting to carry out terrorist acts in Israel. In addition, on the night of 3 on 4 July in London, Palestinian militants attempted an assassination attempt on Israel’s ambassador Moshe Argov and, seriously wounding him, made him lifelong as an invalid. The growing avalanche of Palestinian terrorist attacks on the territory of the Jewish state forced Jerusalem to enter parts of the IDF in neighboring Lebanon. At that time, the Lebanese phalanxes, the militant units of the Kataib party (the Lebanese Social Democratic Party), the majority of which were Christians, acted as an ally of Israel. The first Russian ambassador to Israel, Alexander Bovin, in his memoirs, “Memoirs. The twentieth century as life "noted that it was in the summer of 1982 of the year" Sharon could have done away with Arafat, but the Americans (and it happens!) Took Arafat under their protection. "
Lebanese Islamists, together with Palestinian terrorists, blew up the headquarters of the newly elected President Bashir Pierre Gemayel (1947 – 1982), a Christian by religion. At the same time the president himself and many of his confidants died. Almost simultaneously, the militants massacred in the Christian city of Damur. In response, Falangist militants broke into the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila, located in a suburb of Beirut, and killed several hundred Lebanese and Palestinians, including women and children. And although no Israeli soldier was implicated in this massacre, the charge was brought against Israeli Defense Minister Sharon. The reason for this turn of events is simple - Israeli military units that took control of the Sabra and Shatila region could not stop the Falangists. In Israel, an investigation was carried out on this matter, following which Sharon was forever banned from holding the post of Minister of Defense.
The authoritative columnist of the Makor Rishon newspaper, Boaz Shapira, at the beginning of the article “What Ariel Sharon is to blame for the people of Israel”, as they say, takes the bull by the horns and writes: “I apologize, but I am not going to join the slender chorus of mourning the death of Ariel Sharon. I am not impressed with posthumous glorification. ” Shapira is convinced that one-sided disengagement is a tragedy in the modern history of the Jewish state. Sharon's initiation of this process was not thought out. The PNA leadership refused to fight Hamas for power in the sector after the Jews left.
Boaz Shapira, not hesitating, puts on the mantle of the judge when he writes: “As time passes, it will be clear to everyone, like me, that the only thing that interested Ariel Sharon in his life is Ariel Sharon himself. His life path testifies that this person was not considered with anyone but himself. His appearance radiated power and confidence, but it had nothing to do with life values, morality or morality. ”
Columnist Asaf Golan, who in the same “Makor Rishon” finds the following words for Sharon, has a completely different point of view: “In any case, such a person, whom this or that part of the people of Israel loved and hated at different times, doesn’t fit framework. To understand such a person is difficult. Die Hard, Arik Sharon! .. He never stopped at a red light. He did not distinguish the forbidden lines, whatever they were. Only the Most High could stop such a person! ”
The death of Sharon, although quite expected after eight years of being in a comatose state, was a personal tragedy of hundreds of thousands of Israelis. At the same time, joy and joy reigned among the Palestinians. Cars in the Gaza Strip on the day of the death of the former Israeli leader greeted each other with honks, sweets were distributed on the streets. But in Israel, ultranationalists and religious ultra-orthodoxes did not stay aside. Recall that the ultra-religious radicals imposed on Kaballistichesky curse of Sharon de-Nur (translated from Aramaic, close to Hebrew, the language “fire strike”) on Sharon. At one time, the notorious Leon Trotsky and the Israeli prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Yitzhak Shamir were subjected to these curses. Such a curse is imposed only on the Jews, who have become enemies of the Jewish people and have expressed their readiness to “give the land to Israel to the enemies”. Interestingly, ultra-Orthodox rabbis twice refused to impose “Pulse de Nour” on Sharon, because they believed that he was not a Jew, because his mother had gone through the giyur after the birth of her son. But when it became known that Vera became the Dvor, that is, joined the Jewish people seven years before the birth of the future Israeli leader, the curse was imposed.
On the day of Sharon's death, the police stations received reports of posters in several places with the words “Congratulations on the death of Sharon!”. So, in the ad posted in the ultra-religious yeshiva (Jewish educational institution) "Torat a-Haim" (translated as "The Torah of Life"), it says: "Congratulations to the sons of Ariel Sharon on the death of their father."
In the Israeli police, together with the prosecutor's office, a special group has been established that is engaged in finding the perpetrators and drafting the indictments.
Ari Shavit, the author of the book “The General,” dedicated to Ariel Sharon, considers his hero “the least messianic-minded prime minister of all Israeli leaders.” In his opinion, “Sharon, in essence, was a man of the process. If he left any legacy, it became the realization that we need time, a lot of time, because it will not be possible to achieve peace with one decisive jerk. ”
In other words, Sharon bequeathed to be patient. And to both Jews and Arabs. In the end, the East is a delicate matter. And where it is thin, there it breaks. Today in the “boiling points” - not only in the Middle East - the world is saber or tank attack cannot be reached. Sharon’s experience has proven this. At sunset, he, a military man to the tips of his nails, tried to act differently. Good or bad, he’s hard to say. He just did not have time to go through it.
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