In Hindsight: Ariel Sharon

Ariel Sharon was a powerful force in Israeli politics for almost 40 years. FP dips into its archives to take a look back at how people may remember the political warrior.

"Sharon set out to test the limits of the thinkable and the tolerable. And [he] found the restraints remarkably weak, that critically important powers would either tolerate what [he] did, however outrageous, or be unable to do much about it."
-Fouad Ajami
"Crusade in Lebanon: The Shadows of Hell" (Fall 1982)

"Sharon set out to test the limits of the thinkable and the tolerable. And [he] found the restraints remarkably weak, that critically important powers would either tolerate what [he] did, however outrageous, or be unable to do much about it."
-Fouad Ajami
"Crusade in Lebanon: The Shadows of Hell" (Fall 1982)

"I met Sharon as a matter of habit once every two or three months.… [H]e made clear to me and many others that his ambition was to be prime minister of Israel and that as prime minister, he would be the person to bring about a peace settlement. Obviously, all of us who knew him had our doubts about that message."
-Thomas Pickering
"Mr. Diplomat" (July/August 2001)

"Sharon did not become a dove. As prime minister, he simply understood what he had failed to see when he was a general or defense minister: Israel’s security does not depend on whether it controls this hill or that wadi, but whether it has a strategic understanding with the only power that can meaningfully support Israel: the United States."
-Shlomo Avineri
"Straddling the Fence" (March/April 2005)

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