Arik: The Life of Ariel Sharon
David
Landau
Knopf,
2014. 656 pp. US$35.00
The life of Ariel Sharon spans much of modern Israel's
history. A commander in the Israeli Army from its inception in 1948, Sharon
participated in the 1948 War of Independence, played decisive roles in the 1956
Suez War and the Six-Day War of 1967, and is credited here with the shift in
the outcome of the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
In the late 1970s, world events changed After
leaving the professional army, Sharon became a political leader and served in
numerous governments, most prominently as the defense minister during the 1982
Lebanon War in which he bore "personal responsibility," according to
the state's commission of inquiry, for massacres of Palestinian civilians by
Lebanese militia. As a general and as a politician, he championed the
construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. But as
prime minister, he performed a dramatic reversal: orchestrating Israel's
unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
Jewish Book Council
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