Arik - The Life Of Ariel Sharon
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21. “War of Notes,” Haaretz, April 13, 2007.
22. Arye Naor, in the documentary film Tammuz, dir. Nir Toib, 2006.
23. Naor, Begin in Power, 262.
24. Ariel Sharon, Warrior, 430.
25. Naor, Begin in Power, 262–65.
26. Teddy Preuss, “Sharon Could Use the IDF for Internal Purposes and Embroil Us Abroad,” Davar, July 17, 1981.
27. Arye Naor testimony, December 26, 2000, and January 8, 2001, Begin Heritage Center Archives.
28. Sima Kadmon, “Arik Sharon: Interview,” Maariv, July 8, 1994.
29. Ben Caspit, “At Oslo They Were Amateurs,” Maariv, December 7, 1997.
30. Yosef Waxman, “Begin Will Decide When Yamit Is to Be Evacuated,” Maariv, January 4, 1982.
31. Ariel Sharon, Warrior, 402.
32. Ambassador Samuel W. Lewis, interview with Peter Jessup, August 9, 1998, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project.
33. Ariel Sharon, Warrior, 414.
34. Yossi Melman, “Captain America,” Haaretz, September 26, 2008.
35. Sam Lewis interview, Jerusalem, 2010.
36. Shiffer, Snowball, 53.
37. Naor, Begin in Power, 268.
38. Shiffer, Snowball, 66.
39. Ibid.
40. Ariel Sharon, Warrior, 439.
41. Avi Bettleheim and Avraham Tirosh, “Begin Proposed War in Lebanon in December 1981 After the Golan Law,” special report, Maariv, June 3, 1983.
42. Schiff and Ya’ari, False War, 117.
43. Yeshayahu Ben Porat, “Conversations with Arik Sharon,” Yedioth Ahronoth, June 10, 1983.
44. Minister of Energy Yitzhak Berman, interviewed by Israel TV in A Second Look—the Road to Lebanon, broadcast June 6, 1989, Israel Broadcasting Authority archive, 4249–4256/01.
Chapter 6: Through the Mire
1. Bregman, Israel’s Wars, 158.
2. Naor, Begin in Power, 280.
3. Benziman, Sharon, 242.
4. Bregman, Israel’s Wars, 159.
5. Yitzhak Berman interview, December 4, 2000, Begin Heritage Center Archives.
6. Nissim interview.
7. Herzog, Arab-Israeli Wars, 336. This book, updated after Herzog’s death by Major General (res.) Shlomo Gazit, served as an important source for these accounts of the military moves in the Lebanon War, as did Bregman’s Israel’s Wars.
8. Bettleheim and Tirosh, “Begin Proposed War in Lebanon.”
9. A Second Look—the Road to Lebanon, June 6, 1989, Israel Broadcasting Authority archive 4249–4256/01.
10. Eitan, Soldier’s Story, 236–37.
11. Naor, Begin in Power, 301.
12. Bregman, Israel’s Wars, 172.
13. Naor, Begin in Power, 301; Herzog, Arab-Israeli Wars, 338.
14. Herzog, Arab-Israeli Wars, [page tk].
15. Schiff and Ya’ari, False War, 224.
16. Naor, Begin in Power, 291.
17. Lewis, interview with Jessup.
18. Herzog, Arab-Israeli Wars, 340.
19. Statement by the Government on the Political and Military Situation, Knesset Record, June 29, 1982.
20. Bettleheim and Tirosh, “Begin Proposed War in Lebanon”; Naor, Begin in Power, 324.
21. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 54–55.
22. Ibid., 58–59.
23. Schiff and Ya’ari, False War, 275.
24. Yehuda Litani, “Begin Levels Implied Criticism at Sharon,” Haaretz, August 9, 1982; Schiff and Ya’ari, False War, 277.
25. Bettleheim and Tirosh, “Begin Proposed War in Lebanon.”
26. “Demands in Labor for Commission of Inquiry,” Haaretz, August 16, 1982.
27. Ariel Sharon, Warrior, 493.
28. Ibid., 496.
29. Schiff and Ya’ari, False War, 286.
30. Shiffer, Snowball, 116.
31. Yitzhak Shamir, oral testimony, February 6, 1995, State Archives; cited in Shilon, Begin, 1913–1992, 400.
32. David Kimche, Last Option, 157.
33. Herzog, Arab-Israeli Wars, 353.
34. Shilon, Begin, 1913–1992, 401.
35. Schiff and Ya’ari, False War, 354.
36. Ibid.
37. Eitan, Soldier’s Story, 340.
38. The Commission of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut, 1983. Final Report. [The Kahan Report], 16.
39. Schiff and Ya’ari, False War, 325–27.
40. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 101.
41. Ariel Sharon, Warrior, 504.
42. Kahan Report, 27.
43. Ariel Sharon, Warrior, 505.
44. Kahan Report, 21.
45. Ibid., 15.
46. Ibid., 27.
47. Eitan, Soldier’s Story, 343–44.
48. Israel Television, Interview of the Week, September 26, 1982, ITV Archive 1343/01.
49. Nissim interview.
50. Naor, Begin in Power, 332.
51. Yitzhak Zamir interview, July 24, 2001, Begin Heritage Center Archives.
52. Ariel Sharon, Warrior, 521.
53. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 196ff.; Schiff and Ya’ari, False War, 372ff.
54. Yoel Marcus, “Look Who’s Talking,” Haaretz, February 15, 1985.
Chapter 7: On the Farm
1. Yeshayahu Ben Porat, “A Leadership That Abandons Responsibility Is Itself Abandoned by the People,” Yedioth Ahronoth, June 10, 1983.
2. Bruria Avidan-Barir, “Twice I Didn’t Tell the Truth to Ben-Gurion,” La’isha, September 9, 1985.
3. Amnon Barzilai, “When I Left the Defense Ministry Our Situation Was Better Than Now,” Haaretz, February 15, 1985.
4. Orly Azulai Katz, “Sharon’s Waiting for Shamir,” Yedioth Ahronoth, February 14, 1986.
5. Avidan-Barir, “Twice I Didn’t Tell the Truth to Ben-Gurion.”
6. Dan, Ariel Sharon, 121–22; David K. Shipler, “Sharon Is Offered Chance to Remain in Begin’s Cabinet,” New York Times, February 12, 1983.
7. William E. Smith, “The Verdict Is Guilty,” Time, February 21, 1983.
8. Shilon, Begin, 1913–1992, 419–21.
9. Naor, Begin in Power, 345.
10. Yisrael Katz interview, Tel Aviv, August 4, 2008.
11. Amnon Barzilai, “Arik, Party Man,” Haaretz, November 9, 1984.
12. Peres interview.
13. Reuven Adler interviews, Tel Aviv, October, December 2007; Yisrael Katz interview, Tel Aviv, August 4, 2008.
Chapter 8: Wars Old and New
1. Yosef Harif, “Only One or Two of My Would-Be Successors Are Satisfactory,” Maariv, June 26, 1992.
2. See, for instance, Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 556.
3. Interview of the Week: Sharon on Sabra and Shatila (interviewer, Yoram Ronen), September 26, 1982, Israel Television archives 1343/01.
4. Yossi Beilin interview, Tel Aviv, July 2008.
5. Ariel Sharon, “Lebanon and Israel’s Security”; “Peace for Galilee in the Perspective of Past Wars”; “Peace for Galilee: Aims, Achievements—and Obstructions,” Yedioth Ahronoth, May 24, May 31, June 7, 1985.
6. Ilan Shechori, “Begin to Haaretz: The Time Has Not Yet Come for Me to Speak,” Haaretz, August 13, 1987.
7. Ze’ev Schiff, “The Forty-Kilometer Mystery,” Haaretz, August 28, 1987.
8. Btselem, http://www.btselem.org/Hebrew/Statistics/First_Intifada_Tables.asp; “Balance-Sheet of Occupation,” Haaretz, July 15, 1993.
9. Katz interview.
10. “Sharon: If I Were Defense Minister There Wouldn’t Be an Intifada,” Yedioth Ahronoth, June 22, 1988.
11. “Sharon: One Man, Peres, Prevented Proper Handling of the Riots,” Yedioth Ahronoth, March 16, 1988.
Chapter 9: Jordan Is Palestine?
1. Ariel Sharon, “The Palestinian Problem—the Lie and the Danger,” Yedioth Ahronoth, July 26, 1985.
2. Peres, Battling for Peace, 264.
3. “Sharon: Presenting the International Conference as a Mere Openin
g Event Is a Fraud,” Maariv, May 11, 1987.
4. “Shamir: ‘We’ll examine it in depth and then we’ll decide,’ ” Haaretz, May 5, 1987.
5. Maariv, March 12, 1988.
6. Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 115ff.
7. Author’s conversation with Shamir, 1990.
8. Milo’s brother, Matti, is married to Begin’s daughter Hassia.
9. Israel Television archives, 2292/90.
10. Yeshayahu Ben Porat, “I Prevented Shamir’s Ouster by His Own Loyalists,” Yedioth Ahronoth, June 15, 1990.
11. Joel Greenberg, “Rabbi Eliezer Schach, 103; Leader of Orthodox in Israel,” New York Times, November 3, 2001.
12. Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 132.
13. Ibid., 387.
14. IAF Web site, www.iaf.org.il; Haaretz; Ynet. Arens, Broken Covenant (201), attributes thirteen fatalities to the Scuds.
15. Arens, Broken Covenant, 180.
16. Knesset Record, December 25, 1985.
17. TV interview with Eli Yatzpan, February 23, 2005.
18. Avi Ganor, “A License to Make Money,” Haaretz, March 29, 1991.
19. Anonymous interview, Tel Aviv, June 2008.
20. State Comptroller’s Annual Report No. 42, 192–93.
Chapter 10: Backwoodsman
1. Interview with a senior political adviser to Sharon, subsequently a senior political adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu, who requested anonymity, Tel Aviv, June 2008.
2. Knesset Record, July 27, 1992.
3. Moshe Vardi telephone interview, February 12, 2009.
4. “Democracy and the Jewish State,” Yedioth Ahronoth, May 28, 1993.
5. Ilan Shchori and Yerach Tal, “Labor Intends to Sign a Coalition Agreement with Meretz, Shas, and Tsomet,” Haaretz, June 25, 1992; Akiva Eldar, “A Government of Elderly Doves,” Haaretz, July 13, 1992.
6. “In Place of Autonomy,” Yedioth Ahronoth, August 7, 1992.
7. These freedoms were severely curtailed by Sharon as prime minister during the second intifada (from October 2000). The IDF, citing its war against Palestinian suicide terror, imposed a system of military roadblocks throughout the territories.
8. Sima Kadmon, “Arik Sharon: An Interview,” Maariv, July 8, 1994.
9. For the texts of Resolutions 242 and 338, and the Oslo Accords, see Appendix.
10. “Disengagement, the Palestinian Economy, and the Settlements,” World Bank, working paper, June 23, 2004.
11. Eitan Haber interview, Ramat Gan, February 17, 2009.
12. Author’s conversations with Yossi Beilin, 1993–2008.
13. Kadmon, “Arik Sharon.”
14. Nadav Shragai, “Tens of Thousands Demonstrate in Jlm Against the Agreement; Damage PM’s Car,” Haaretz, October 6, 1995; Daniel Ben-Simon, “Chronicle of a Murder Foretold,” Haaretz, November 4, 2005.
15. Haaretz, Yedioth Ahronoth, Maariv, October 6, 1995.
16. Itim News Agency, “MK Sharon Calls for Passive Resistance to Hebron Eviction,” Haaretz, March 30, 1994.
17. David Landau and Aviva Lori, “Worried About the Jewish People in 3,000 Years’ Time,” Haaretz, August 10, 1995.
18. Dalia Rabin interview, Tel Aviv, March 29, 2009.
19. Benjamin Netanyahu interview, Tel Aviv, May 5, 2006.
20. Ibid.
21. Zvi Zerahia and Nadav Shragai, “Sharon Sworn in as Minister of National Infrastructures; Thanked Levy for Showing True Friendship,” Haaretz, July 9, 1996.
22. David Makovsky, “The U.S. Fears: Sharon’s Promotion Will Further Complicate the Peace Process,” Haaretz, June 6, 1997; Yossi Verter, “Beilin: European Figures Warn Against Sharon’s Appointment as Minister of Finance,” Haaretz, June 6, 1997.
23. Ross, Missing Peace, 339.
24. “Sharon: We Worked Hard to Get This Prime Minister; Stop Complaining,” Haaretz, June 20, 1997.
25. This episode earned him an Economist cover, with the memorable caption “Serial Bungler.”
26. Danny Yatom, telephone interview, April 6, 2009.
27. Amira Hass, “At a Mass Rally in Gaza Yassin Thanks Hussein, Arafat, and the Arab MKs,” Haaretz, October 7, 1997.
28. Meir Ben-Meir interview, Yokneam, April 13, 2009.
29. Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty, Annex II: Water and Related Matters.
Chapter 11: Last Man Standing
1. Motions for the Agenda: The Meeting Between Minister Sharon and Mr. Abu Mazen, Knesset Record, July 2, 1997.
2. Yedioth Ahronoth, June 26, 1997; Shiffer was no stranger to the ranch himself. He had been much in favor with the Sharons before the Lebanon War. But writing a book critical of the campaign changed his designation from friend to foe, especially on Lily’s list. Now, a decade and a half later, there was rumored to be a thaw. His article was read with care.
3. Yerach Tal, “Senior U.S. Officials Reject Sharon’s Cantons Scheme,” Haaretz, November 24, 1997; Shimon Shiffer, “Sharon: A Palestinian State Is a Fait Accompli,” Yedioth Ahronoth, November 25, 1997.
4. Yossi Verter, “Netanyahu-Sharon Ties Improving,” Haaretz, August 13, 1997.
5. Amira Segev, “Sharon: I Told the PM, I Don’t Know Whether to Help Your Right Hand or Your Left Hand,” Haaretz, November 12, 1997.
6. Ross, Missing Peace, 493.
7. Danny Rubinstein, “Sharon Sent Greetings ‘to Arafat and His Family,’ ” Haaretz, December 31, 2000. Rubinstein, a veteran Arab affairs commentator, wrote a biography of the Palestinian leader: The Mystery of Arafat (South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press, 1995).
8. Dr. Azmi Shuaibi interview, Oslo, December 9, 2009.
9. Ze’ev Schiff, “Sharon Asked the Palestinians Not to Condemn His Appointment,” Haaretz, October 15, 1998.
10. Cf. Dan, Ariel Sharon, 145–46: “Sharon was against it, since Clinton could no longer honor his word, but he was in the minority.”
11. Eldar and Zertal, Lords of the Land, 170.
12. Tomer Orni interviews, London, December 6–7, 2009.
13. Yoram Bronowski, “Tragic Heroes,” Haaretz, October 30, 1998.
14. Eytan Bentsur interview, Tel Aviv, March 24, 2009.
15. Ibid.
16. Ze’ev Schiff, “Sharon Offers Syria Withdrawal from Lebanon Before the Election,” Haaretz, April 13, 1999.
17. Ze’ev Schiff, “Netanyahu Was Close to an Agreement to Withdraw from the Golan,” Haaretz, May 28, 1999.
18. “Sharon: This Is How I Blocked the Negotiations with Syria,” Maariv, June 2, 1999.
19. Daniel Pipes, “The Road to Damascus: What Netanyahu Almost Gave Away,” New Republic, July 5, 1999.
20. Netanyahu interview.
21. Arens interview, May 30, 2006; telephone interview, March 19, 2009.
Chapter 12: Summit
1. “Sharon: I’m Running,” Maariv, June 2, 1999. Later that summer, as the primaries campaign heated up, Sharon observed that he was “loath to flaunt my medical records: they might make other people ill.” Yedioth Ahronoth, August 27, 1999.
2. Nahum Barnea, “Plan for February,” Yedioth Ahronoth, August 20, 1999.
3. Bregman, Elusive Peace, 3. This important book, based mainly on interviews, was written to accompany the BBC television series Israel and the Arabs by Brook Lapping Productions.
4. Ibid., 11, citing General (res.) Danny Yatom, Barak’s senior aide and the former Mossad chief.
5. Ofir Akunis interview, Tel Aviv, June 7, 2009.
6. Anonymous interviews, Jerusalem, 2008–2009.
7. Ross, Missing Peace, 539.
8. Nonconfidence Resolution in the Prime Minister Submitted by the Likud Faction: His Policy Regarding Palestinian Activity in Jerusalem, Knesset Record, February 21, 2000.
9. Ross, Missing Peace, 585.
10. Akunis interview.
11. Anonymous interview.
12. Ross, Missing Peace, 599.
13. Ben-Ami, in Bregman, Elusive Peace, 68.
14. Bregman, Elusive Peace, 77.
15. Ibid.
1
6. Ben-Ami, Front Without a Rearguard, 224. See also Ben-Ami, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace.
17. Indyk, Innocent Abroad, 313, 330, 335.
18. No-Confidence Motion by the National Union Faction: Israel’s Sovereignty over Jerusalem, Knesset Record, July 24, 2000.
19. No-Confidence Motion by the Likud Faction: The Prime Minister’s Method of Negotiating at Camp David, Knesset Record, July 31, 2000.
20. Motion by the Likud Faction: The Prime Minister’s Trips Abroad to Negotiate with the Palestinians, Contravening Cabinet Decisions, Knesset Record, August 15, 2000.
21. They have since divorced and each remarried.
22. Sher, Just Beyond Reach, 282.
23. Harel and Isacharoff, Seventh War, 15. A similar account of the Arafat-Barak conversation appears in Bregman, Elusive Peace, 123.
24. Ben-Ami, Front Without a Rearguard, 287. Rajoub denied this version in his testimony before the Mitchell Commission and in his interview with Bregman, Elusive Peace.
25. Yossi Verter, “Sharon Will Climb Down—and Get the Second Spot,” Haaretz, September 28, 2000.
26. Amira Hass and Baruch Kra, “Visit by Sharon and the Likud on the Temple Mount Provokes a Storm,” Haaretz, September 29, 2000.
27. Uri Dan, whom the others kept out of this forum but who still tried to maintain his close relationship with Sharon, was enthusiastically in favor. In his book, he recalls accompanying Sharon, then minister of commerce, one freezing dawn in the mid-1980s on a demonstrative visit to the Wall after Palestinians had thrown stones at Jewish worshippers. “For Sharon, it was not a provocation but a confirmation of Israeli sovereignty over the site.” Dan, Ariel Sharon, 159.
28. Omri Sharon interviews, Yavne, 2008–2009.
29. “Senior Likudniks Stayed Away,” Yedioth Ahronoth, September 29, 2000.
30. Harel and Isacharoff, Seventh War, 18ff.
31. A report in Maariv, undenied, said the IDF’s Central Command fired 850,000 rounds of light-arms ammunition during the first month of the intifada. Ibid., 36.
32. Indyk, Innocent Abroad, 352.
33. Dan, Ariel Sharon, 176.
34. Ben-Ami, Front Without a Rearguard, 297ff.
35. Bregman, Elusive Peace, 129.
36. Yoel Marcus, “Rock of Our Existence—Part II,” Haaretz, October 3, 2000.