Ariel Sharon - nee Sheinerman (translated from Yiddish "handsome"). His parents moved from Russia to what was then Palestine in 1921. At the age of 14, Ariel Sharon, whose life was called Arik, joined the Haganah (Defense), an underground Jewish militant organization that opposed British rule in Palestine. He participated in all the wars that the Jewish state, re-established in 1948, had to wage with its neighbors and terrorist Islamist organizations.
It is Sharon who is called the Savior of Israel. During the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, Egyptian and Syrian forces unexpectedly attacked the Jewish state on the most important Jewish holiday. Sharon, at the head of the famous 143rd Armored Brigade across the Suez Canal to the African coast, managed to reverse the initial success of the Egyptian army, the most powerful enemy. His brigade, in fact, decided the outcome of the war in favor of the Jews.
In one of his interviews, Sharon talked about a meeting with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who arrived in Israel in 1977. First of all, the most senior Egyptian, later killed by an Islamist for signing a peace treaty with Jews, expressed a desire to meet with Ariel Sharon. After shaking hands with the famous general, Sadat said: "After your troops crossed the Suez Canal during the 1973 war, we wanted to take you prisoner and threw all our forces into it." To these words, Sharon replied: "Take me prisoner now, not as an enemy, but as a friend."
HALF RUSSIAN
The NVO correspondent met with Sharon during his premiership. Although the conversation was conducted in English and Hebrew, at the very beginning Sharon, demonstrating his knowledge of the "great and mighty", recited a few lines from Pushkin and Lermontov. In fact, the future general and head of government had two native languages: Hebrew and Russian. He recalled that as a child, his mother, Vera Shneierova, the daughter of a rich man from Mogilev, read him Russian fairy tales. Sharon's parents met each other at Tbilisi University, where they both came from Belarus. My father studied to be an agronomist, and my mother managed to complete two courses of the medical faculty. Ariel Sharon's mother has Siberian roots. Already in Palestine, she underwent conversion (the procedure for accepting Judaism) and received the Hebrew name of 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 (the Israel Defense Forces), he changed his "galut" Yiddish surname, sounding in a German way, for a completely Hebrew surname - 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. Indeed, in the future, Ariel Sharon became a successful farmer.
Undoubtedly, Ariel Sharon, a general and statesman, is an era in the history of not only Israel, but the entire Middle East. This man received an excellent military and civilian education. At the British Command and Staff College, he defended his dissertation on the topic: "Intervention of the army command in tactical decisions on the battlefield: the experience of Great Britain and Germany." Through his work on this topic, Sharon became an expert on the writings of Montgomery and Rommel. Later, in 1966, he graduated from the Law School of the Hebrew (Hebrew) University in Jerusalem.
In the governments of the Jewish state, he held responsible ministerial posts. In 2001-2006, Sharon headed the government. Having fallen into a coma eight years ago, he died on January 11 this year in the arms of his sons Omri and Gilad.
One cannot but agree with the well-known Israeli publicist Jacob Schaus (by the way, a native of Vilnius, an outstanding athlete, a specialist in international drafts), who wrote in the article "Winner" published immediately after the death of the former head of the Israeli government: "It just so happened that on the share of Ariel Sharon was fame, admiration, universal worship and always followed by hatred and lies”. His personal tragedies include the death in 1962 in a road traffic accident of his first wife, Margalit, and the death in 1967 of the first-born Gur. His second wife, Lilith, his own sister Margalit, with whom he lived for over 30 years, died in 2002.
FROM LEFT FLANGE TO RIGHT AND BACK
Shalom Yerushalmi, a leading publicist for the Israeli newspaper Maariv, in his article "Ariel Sharon - a genius commander and politician" notes the extraordinary personality of the former Israeli leader, who showed his remarkable talent not only in the military, but also in politics. As an example, he cites the creation by Sharon in 1973 on the basis of two small parties - Herut (Freedom) and Liberal - a powerful center-right political bloc, Likud (Union). Only led by Sharon did the newly formed bloc begin to play a leading role in the political foreground of the Jewish state. Yerushalmi draws attention to the fact that the political program of Menachem Begin (1913-1992; native of Belarus), the first politician of the right camp, who took the post of prime minister in 1977 after the permanent domination of the Israeli left state on the political Olympus, was formed by Ariel Sharon. At the same time, it is very significant that Sharon himself, having received a deputy mandate, immediately gave it up, deciding to focus on military affairs.
Ariel Sharon is considered the ideologist of the settlement movement. Thanks to his activity in various ministerial posts, the number of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip doubled. The development city of Ariel in Samaria (West Bank of the Jordan River), founded in 1978, is named after him. The Palestinian Authority (PNA) is demanding the dismantling of this city, since, according to Ramallah, it is located on its territory.
It is important to keep in mind that Sharon was elected to the post of head of government precisely as the charismatic leader of the right-wing camp. The leaflets 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. Israel today needs an experienced and strong leader. Israel needs Ariel Sharon today! " No one then could have imagined that, having found himself at the pinnacle of power in the Jewish state, the famous military leader, "Winner" and "Savior of Israel", would behave completely 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-wing party, who was considered not only in Israel, but throughout the world as a die-hard "hawk", is still difficult to explain 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 was put forward by his rival, who was heading the center-left Labor Party at that time, also former General Amram Mitsna. And suddenly such a "left turn" yesterday was the most right-wing Israeli politician!
It is impossible to assume that the fearless general was afraid of the attack by the media, most of which are on the liberal and leftist positions over the corruption scandals of his sons. In the end, his offspring did not commit special crimes: the youngest, Gilad, did not work for long as an advisor (and in fact, an extra for a large salary) for his father's friend, contractor David Appel. The eldest, Omri, did not quite legally register several companies that financed Ariel Sharon's election campaign. As a result, the charges against Gilad were dropped, and Omri served several months in prison.
Retired Colonel Yaniv Rokhov, who worked in the analytical department of the IDF General Staff during Ariel Sharon's premiership, said in an interview with an NVO correspondent: “In principle, Sharon followed the right path. An entire Israeli division was stationed in Gaza to protect less than 10,000 settlers. And the point is not only that the presence of such a number of military personnel in the overpopulated sector of Palestinians cost the treasury huge sums. The main thing is that Israeli soldiers were killed almost every month.” According to Rokhov, "an unexpected illness did not allow Sharon to fully implement his own plan." A former Israeli military analyst believes that Sharon's plan consisted of an immediate crushing attack on the sector if, after the IDF left, Hamas or Islamic Jihad fighters dared to attack the territory of the Jewish state. Ehud Olmert, who took over as head of the Israeli government after Sharon, did not have the decisiveness of the Winner. And the IDF's retaliatory air strikes against rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli cities have never been devastating.
The consequence of the split in Likud 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 voters continued to trust not only Sharon, but also his "heirs". This is evidenced by the fact that in the elections to the 17th Knesset in March 2006, Kadima received 29 mandates and formed a government. But the voter will not be fed up with memory for a long time! Continuous shelling from Gaza has also done its job. And in the last elections, the “Kadimovites” 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 a one-man party, and the Liberal Democratic Party remains so.
It is curious to compare Yaniv Rokhov's "unilateral delimitation" of Sharon and the NEP introduced in Russia by Lenin. The 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 apoplectic stroke. In Sharon's case, this blow was not much different from death.
It is also impossible not to take into account Sharon's aspirations to please certain political forces on the far right flank. He, a balancing act politician, opposed the construction of protective structures on the border with the PNA. Although similar structures with the Gaza Strip have already been built, the number of terrorist attacks by Hamas and jihadist militants who could not get over the border fence have completely disappeared. Sharon feared that the ultra-right would accuse him of creating a "new Jewish ghetto" out of Israel.
A native of Moscow, Yakov Kedmi (Kazakov), who for a long time led Nativ, the Bureau for Relations with Jews of the former USSR and Eastern Europe, in his recently published book Hopeless Wars in Hebrew and Russian, he writes that in one of his interviews he “charged Sharon with grave accusations of disregard for the safety of the Israeli population because of his refusal to build barriers bordering on 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 fears of entering into confrontation with ultra-nationalist and religious circles were not more dear to him than the lives of Israeli citizens." 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 associates - what was called the“family”- ruled Russia. I stated that Ariel Sharon is ruling Israel with the help of his sons and they, his sons, determine Israel's state priorities. " Heavy accusations! Very heavy! Moreover, they are expressed by a person who, in the same book, states: “I loved Ariel Sharon before admiration for him. This love and admiration did not allow me for many years to see the problematic nature of his behavior."
ON HIM "HANGED ALL THE DOGS"
It is known that Ariel Sharon was not particularly worried about other people's opinions. However, according to his family and friends, the charge brought against him in 1982 was an exception. As long as Sharon remained conscious, he could not forget the tragedy of that summer. It was then that Palestinian militants, led by Yasser Arafat and expelled by King Hussein from Jordan, tried to find shelter in Lebanon and establish their own order there. They provoked a civil war in the most flourishing country in the Middle East, while not forgetting to carry out terrorist acts on the territory of Israel. In addition, on the night of July 3-4 in London, Palestinian militants attempted to assassinate Israeli Ambassador Moshe Argov and, having seriously wounded him, made him an invalid for life. The growing avalanche of attacks by Palestinian terrorists on the territory of the Jewish state forced Jerusalem to send parts of the IDF to neighboring Lebanon. Then Israel's ally were the "Lebanese Phalanges", the fighting units of the "Kataib" (Lebanese Social Democratic Party) party, the majority of which were Christians. The first Russian ambassador to Israel, Alexander Bovin, in his memoirs “Memoirs. XX century as life”noted that it was in the summer of 1982 that“Sharon could have done away with Arafat, but the Americans (and this happens!) Took Arafat under their protection”.
Lebanese Islamists, together with Palestinian terrorists, blew up the headquarters of newly elected President Bashir Pierre Gemayel (1947-1982), a Christian by faith. At the same time, the president himself and many of his entourage died. Almost simultaneously, the militants staged a massacre in the Christian city of Damur. In response, phalangist militants broke into the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian camps in the suburbs of Beirut and killed several hundred Lebanese and Palestinians, including women and children. Although no Israeli soldier was involved in the massacre, Israeli Defense Minister Sharon was charged. The reason for this turn of events is simple - the Israeli military units, which took control of the Sabra and Shatila area, were unable to stop the Falangists. In Israel, an investigation was carried out on this matter, as a result of which Sharon was forever banned from holding the post of defense minister.
The authoritative columnist of the newspaper "Makor Rishon" Boaz Shapira at the beginning of the article "What is Ariel Sharon to blame before the people of Israel", as they say, takes the bull by the horns and writes: "I beg your pardon, but I am not going to join the harmonious chorus of mourning the death of Ariel Sharon. I am not impressed by the posthumous praise. " Shapira is convinced that unilateral delimitation 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 departure of the Jews.
Boaz Shapira does not hesitate to put on the mantle of a judge when he writes: “Time will pass, and everyone, like me, will understand: the only thing that interested Ariel Sharon in the life of Ariel Sharon was Ariel Sharon himself. His life path testifies to the fact that this person did not reckon with anyone but himself. His appearance radiated power and confidence, but this had nothing to do with life values, morality and ethics."
The observer Asaf Golan has a completely different point of view, who in the same Makor Rishon finds the following words for Sharon: “In any case, such a person who was loved and hated at different periods of time by one or another part of the people of Israel does not fit into any framework. It is difficult to understand such a person. Die hard, Arik Sharon!.. He never stopped at a red light. He did not discern forbidden lines, whatever they were. Only the Almighty could stop such a person!"
The death of Sharon, although quite expected after eight years in a coma, was a personal tragedy for hundreds of thousands of Israelis. At the same time, joy and merriment reigned among the Palestinians. Cars in the Gaza Strip greeted each other with honking honks on the day the former Israeli leader died, and sweets were handed out in the streets. But in Israel, ultra-nationalists and religious ultra-Orthodox did not stand aside. Let us recall that ultra-religious radicals imposed on Sharon the cabalistic curse “Pulsa de Nur” (translated from Aramaic, a language close to Hebrew, “blow of fire”). 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 Jews who have become enemies of the Jewish people and have expressed their readiness to “give the Land of Israel to the enemies”. Interestingly, the ultra-Orthodox rabbis twice refused to impose "Pulsa de Nur" on Sharon, because they believed that he was not a Jew, because his mother was converted after the birth of her son. But when it became known that Vera had become the Court, 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, police stations received reports of posters appearing in a number of places with the words: "Congratulations on Sharon's death!" Thus, an ad posted in the ultra-religious yeshiva (Jewish educational institution) "Torat Ha-Chaim" (translated as "Torah of Life") reads: "Congratulations to the sons of Ariel Sharon on the death of their father."
In the Israeli police, in conjunction with the prosecutor's office, a special group has been set up to search for the perpetrators and draw up indictments.
Ari Shavit, author of The General, dedicated to Ariel Sharon, considers his hero "the least messianic prime minister of all Israeli leaders." In his opinion, “Sharon was essentially a man of process. If he left any legacy, then it was 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 both Jews and Arabs. After all, 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 cannot be reached by saber or tank attack. Sharon's experience has proven this. At the end of his life, he, a military man to the tips of his nails, tried to act differently. It is difficult to say whether he chose a good path or a bad one. He simply did not have time to pass it.
