12 January 2014
He sought peace, as Israeli leaders would love to see, in leaving the Gaza Strip. Sadly what he and Israel got in return was more violence, death, and attacks. Ariel Sharon was a Soldier, a leader, a simple man — an Israeli. May he rest in peace.
…Raanan Gissin, a close aide, said the main reason Mr. Sharon went from a champion of the settlements to an advocate of territorial withdrawal was growing international pressure for a Palestinian state.
“He was not an ideologue; he was a political architect,” Mr. Gissin said. “As a military man he knew one thing from the battlefield — you have to seize the initiative, you have to be the one driving the action. Even if peace was impossible, he wanted the process seeking it to be on his terms. And while he was in power, it was.”
Read the entire obituary at The New York Times.
Related: Ariel Sharon vs. Barack Obama: A Case Study in Leadership
Update: Arik, King of Israel, Dead
…Sharon was one of Israel’s legendary politicians and military leaders. He played an instrumental role in IDF victories in the Sinai desert in both the 1967 Six Day War and in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. His victories on the battlefield, immortalized by the image of him in an IDF uniform with a white bandage wrapped around his wounded forehead, earned him the title, “Arik, King of Israel.”…
