89 Facts About Ariel Sharon

1.

Ariel Sharon was a commander in the Israeli Army from its creation in 1948.

2.

Ariel Sharon was an instrumental figure in the creation of Unit 101 and the reprisal operations, as well as in the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Six-Day War of 1967, the War of Attrition, and the Yom-Kippur War of 1973.

3.

Ariel Sharon became the leader of the Likud in 2000, and was elected Prime Minister of Israel after defeating Ehud Barak in the 2001 prime ministerial election.

4.

Ariel Sharon served as Israel's prime minister from 2001 to 2006, during the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

5.

Ariel Sharon had been expected to win the next election and was widely interpreted as planning on "clearing Israel out of most of the West Bank", in a series of unilateral withdrawals.

6.

Ariel Sharon remains a highly polarizing figure in Middle East history.

7.

Ariel Sharon was born on 26 February 1928 in Kfar Malal, an agricultural moshav, then in Mandatory Palestine, to Shmuel Scheinerman of Brest-Litovsk and Vera Scheinerman of Mogilev.

8.

Ariel Sharon's parents met while at university in Tiflis, where Sharon's father was studying agronomy and his mother was studying medicine.

9.

In 1942 at the age of 14, Ariel Sharon joined the Gadna, a paramilitary youth battalion, and later the Haganah, the underground paramilitary force and the Jewish military precursor to the Israel Defense Forces.

10.

Ariel Sharon was regarded as a hardened and aggressive soldier, swiftly moving up the ranks during the war.

11.

Ariel Sharon was shot in the groin, stomach and foot by the Jordanian Arab Legion in the First Battle of Latrun, an unsuccessful attempt to relieve the besieged Jewish community of Jerusalem.

12.

Ariel Sharon wrote of the casualties in the "horrible battle," and his brigade suffered 139 deaths.

13.

Jordanian field marshal Habis Majali said that Ariel Sharon was among 6 Israeli soldiers captured by the Jordanian 4th battalion during the battle, and that Majali took them to a camp in Mafraq and the 6 were later traded back.

14.

In September 1949, Ariel Sharon was promoted to company commander and in 1950 to intelligence officer for Central Command.

15.

Ariel Sharon then took leave to begin studies in history and Middle Eastern culture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

16.

Some commanders, such as Baum and Ariel Sharon, deliberately sought firefights.

17.

Later in the year, Ariel Sharon was investigated and tried by the Military Police for disciplining one of his subordinates.

18.

Ariel Sharon commanded Unit 202 during the 1956 Suez War, leading the troop to take the ground east of the Sinai's Mitla Pass and eventually the pass itself against the advice of superiors, suffering heavy Israeli casualties in the process.

19.

Ariel Sharon asked for permission to attack the pass several times, but his requests were denied, though he was allowed to check its status so that if the pass was empty, he could receive permission to take it later.

20.

Ariel Sharon sent a small scout force, which was met with heavy fire and became bogged down due to vehicle malfunction in the middle of the pass.

21.

Ariel Sharon ordered the rest of his troops to attack in order to aid their comrades.

22.

Ariel Sharon had assaulted Themed in a dawn attack, and had stormed the town with his armor through the Themed Gap.

23.

Ariel Sharon routed the Sudanese police company, and captured the settlement.

24.

On his way to the Nakla, Ariel Sharon's men came under attack from Egyptian MIG-15s.

25.

Dayan had no more plans for further advances beyond the passes, but Ariel Sharon nonetheless decided to attack the Egyptian positions at Jebel Heitan.

26.

Ariel Sharon sent his lightly armed paratroopers against dug-in Egyptians supported by aircraft, tanks and heavy artillery.

27.

Ariel Sharon's actions were in response to reports of the arrival of the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the 4th Egyptian Armored Division in the area, which Ariel Sharon believed would annihilate his forces if he did not seize the high ground.

28.

Ariel Sharon sent two infantry companies, a mortar battery and some AMX-13 tanks under the command of Mordechai Gur into the Heitan Defile on the afternoon of 31 October 1956.

29.

However, when Yitzhak Rabin became Chief of Staff in 1964, Ariel Sharon again began to rise rapidly in the ranks, occupying the positions of Infantry School Commander and Head of Army Training Branch, eventually achieving the rank of Aluf.

30.

Researchers at the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command studied Ariel Sharon's operational planning, concluding that it involved a number of unique innovations.

31.

Ariel Sharon remained in the military for another three years, before retiring in August 1973.

32.

At the start of the Yom Kippur War on 6 October 1973, Ariel Sharon was called back to active duty along with his assigned reserve armored division.

33.

Ariel Sharon's forces did not engage the Egyptian Army immediately, despite his requests.

34.

Under cover of darkness, Ariel Sharon's forces moved to a point on the Suez Canal that had been prepared before the war.

35.

Ariel Sharon then headed north towards Ismailia, intent on cutting the Egyptian second army's supply lines, but his division was halted south of the Fresh Water Canal.

36.

Ariel Sharon's division managed to encircle Suez, cutting off and encircling the Third Army.

37.

Two and a half weeks after the start of the election campaign, the Yom Kippur War erupted and Ariel Sharon was called back to reserve service.

38.

From June 1975 to March 1976, Ariel Sharon was a special aide to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

39.

Ariel Sharon planned his return to politics for the 1977 elections; first, he tried to return to the Likud and replace Menachem Begin at the head of the party.

40.

Ariel Sharon suggested to Simha Erlich, who headed the Liberal Party bloc in the Likud, that he was more able than Begin to win an election victory; he was rejected, however.

41.

Ariel Sharon then tried to join the Labor Party and the centrist Democratic Movement for Change, but was rejected by those parties too.

42.

Ariel Sharon used his position to encourage the establishment of a network of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories to prevent the possibility of Palestinian Arabs' return to these territories.

43.

Ariel Sharon doubled the number of Jewish settlements on the West Bank and Gaza Strip during his tenure.

44.

Under Ariel Sharon, Israel continued to build upon the unprecedented coordination between the Israel Defense Forces and the South African Defence Force, with Israeli and South African generals giving each other unfettered access to each other's battlefields and military tactics, and Israel sharing with South Africa highly classified information about its missions, such as Operation Opera, which had previously only been reserved for the United States.

45.

In 1981, after visiting South African forces fighting in Namibia for 10 days, Ariel Sharon argued that South Africa needed more weapons to fight Soviet infiltration in the region.

46.

Ariel Sharon promised that the relationship between Israel and South Africa would continue to deepen as they work to "ensure the National Defense of both our countries".

47.

Ariel Sharon intended the operation to eradicate the PLO from its state within a state inside Lebanon, but the war is primarily remembered for the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

48.

The commission concluded that Ariel Sharon bore personal responsibility "for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge [and] not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed".

49.

Ariel Sharon initially refused to resign as defense minister, and Begin refused to fire him.

50.

Ariel Sharon sued Time for libel in American and Israeli courts.

51.

On 18 June 2001, relatives of the victims of the Sabra massacre began proceedings in Belgium to have Ariel Sharon indicted on alleged war crimes charges.

52.

Ariel Sharon unsuccessfully challenged Shamir in the 1984 Herut leadership election and the 1992 Likud leadership election.

53.

Ariel Sharon criticised the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 as an act of "brutal interventionism".

54.

Ariel Sharon said both Serbia and Kosovo have been victims of violence.

55.

Ariel Sharon said prior to the current Yugoslav campaign against Kosovo Albanians, Serbians were the targets of attacks in the Kosovo province.

56.

Ariel Sharon declared that the complex would remain under perpetual Israeli control.

57.

Ariel Sharon's visit, a few months before his election as Prime Minister, came after archeologists claimed that extensive building operations at the site were destroying priceless antiquities.

58.

In September 2003, Ariel Sharon became the first prime minister of Israel to visit India, saying that Israel regarded India as one of the most important countries in the world.

59.

On 20 July 2004, Ariel Sharon called on French Jews to emigrate from France to Israel immediately, in light of an increase in antisemitism in France.

60.

An Israeli spokesperson later claimed that Ariel Sharon had been misunderstood.

61.

In September 2001, Ariel Sharon stated for the first time that Palestinians should have the right to establish their own land west of the Jordan River.

62.

In May 2003, Ariel Sharon endorsed the Road Map for Peace put forth by the United States, the European Union and Russia, which opened a dialogue with Mahmud Abbas, and stated his commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state in the future.

63.

Ariel Sharon embarked on a course of unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, while maintaining control of its coastline and airspace.

64.

Ariel Sharon's plan was welcomed by both the Palestinian Authority and Israel's left wing as a step towards a final peace settlement.

65.

On 1 December 2004, Ariel Sharon dismissed five ministers from the Shinui party for voting against the government's 2005 budget.

66.

In January 2005, Ariel Sharon formed a national unity government that included representatives of Likud, Labor, and Meimad and Degel HaTorah as "out-of-government" supporters without any seats in the government.

67.

Between 16 and 30 August 2005, Ariel Sharon controversially expelled 9,480 Jewish settlers from 21 settlements in Gaza and four settlements in the northern West Bank.

68.

Once it became clear that the evictions were definitely going ahead, a group of conservative Rabbis, led by Yosef Dayan, placed an ancient curse on Ariel Sharon known as the Pulsa diNura, calling on the Angel of Death to intervene and kill him.

69.

On 21 November 2005, Ariel Sharon resigned as head of Likud, and dissolved parliament to form a new centrist party called Kadima.

70.

Ariel Sharon's stroke occurred a few months before he had been expected to win a new election and was widely interpreted as planning on "clearing Israel out of most of the West Bank", in a series of unilateral withdrawals.

71.

Gilad Ariel Sharon was brought into the campaign to make the wilderness bloom in Russia by Getex, a large Russian-based exporter of seeds from Eastern Europe.

72.

Ariel Sharon owns farms in Eastern Europe and is considered large and prominent in its field.

73.

In October 2004 when asked why he did not wear a bulletproof vest despite frequent death threats, Ariel Sharon smiled and replied, "There is none that fits my size".

74.

Ariel Sharon was a daily consumer of cigars and luxury foods.

75.

Ariel Sharon was hospitalized on 18 December 2005, after suffering a minor ischemic stroke.

76.

Ariel Sharon was rushed to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.

77.

The next month, the Israeli Cabinet declared Ariel Sharon permanently incapacitated and Olmert became Interim Prime Minister on 14 April 2006 and Prime Minister in his own right on 4 May.

78.

Ariel Sharon underwent a series of subsequent surgeries related to his state.

79.

Ariel Sharon would remain at Sheba Medical Center until his death.

80.

Ariel Sharon's condition worsened from late 2013, and Sharon suffered from renal failure on 1 January 2014.

81.

Ariel Sharon was married twice, to two sisters, Margalit and Lily Zimmerman, who were from Romania.

82.

Ariel Sharon met Margalit in 1947 when she was 16, while she was tending a vegetable field, and married her in 1953, shortly after becoming a military instructor.

83.

Ariel Sharon reestablished contact with the family after Sharon's stroke.

84.

Ariel Sharon's sister has rarely been mentioned in biographies of him: he himself rarely acknowledged her and only mentioned her twice in his autobiography.

85.

Human Rights Watch have contended that Ariel Sharon should have been held criminally accountable for his role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, and other abuses.

86.

Ariel Sharon served as prime minister from 7 March 2001 through 14 April 2006.

87.

Ariel Sharon served in the Knesset, first for several months in 1973, and later from 1977 through 2006.

88.

Ariel Sharon was the leader of the Shlomtzion party from its 1976 founding until its 1977 merger into Likud.

89.

Ariel Sharon served as leader of the Likud party from 1999 through 2005, leaving to create Kadima which he led from 2005 through early 2006.