Re: Ariel Sharon Dies age 85

Admin Mon 13 Jan 2014, 12:04 am

Ariel Sharon’s Forgotten Legacy: Jews Marching to the White House
Posted by: Dr. Rafael Medoff January 12, 2014 , 4:10 pm
By Rafael Medoff (JNS.org)
Although Ariel Sharon will be remembered primarily for his achievements on the battlefield and his decisions as an Israeli political leader, an often-overlooked aspect of his legacy was his impact on the American Jewish community.
In March 1980, Sharon arrived in the United States in the midst of an uproar over the Carter administration’s support of a United Nations resolution branding Jerusalem “occupied Arab territory.” Sharon, as a member of Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s cabinet, was invited to address an urgent meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, in New York City.
In his remarks, Sharon criticized U.S. Jewish leaders for not responding more vigorously to the Carter administration’s action. He recalled the hesitant response of some Jewish leaders during the Holocaust, and added, “Jewish silence will bring disaster upon the Jewish people and upon Israel.”
Sharon charged that recent friendly meetings between Jewish leaders and White House officials had served to “cover up” the administration’s tilt away from Israel. He urged American Jews to speak out strongly against Carter’s pressure on Israel, and said he was “shocked” that 100,000 Jews did not march to the White House to protest the U.S. vote on the U.N. resolution.
No transcript of the meeting was released, but one press report at the time claimed that some of the Jewish leaders in the room “took umbrage at the interference of the Israeli in such strident tones in American Jewish affairs.” An editorial in the New York Jewish Week said Sharon’s advice was “counter-productive” because it might give the American public the impression “that all of America’s foreign policy and domestic problems are based on Israel.”
But the Jewish Week also emphasized that “American Jews, as voters, have a means of expressing themselves.” With the 1980 New York presidential primaries just weeks away, the Week seemed to be encouraging Jewish voters to oppose President Carter’s re-election.
Sharon was also strongly attacked in the pages of the Jewish magazine Midstream, by historian Bernard Wasserstein. “If 1,000 rabbis had marched up and down in front of the White House and had refused to disperse until something concrete was done for the Jews, then, he believes, the administration’s conscience might have been stirred,” Wasserstein wrote. “It is a picturesque scenario—and one which would no doubt earn the warm approval of Ariel Sharon—but, alas, is unaccompanied by any supporting evidence that might raise it to the level of a serious political proposition.”
Wasserstein was evidently unaware that in 1943, just before Yom Kippur, some 400 rabbis did march to the White House. That protest garnered important publicity for the cause of rescuing Jewish refugees, and helped galvanize congressional pressure on the Roosevelt administration on the rescue issue.
As it turned out, Sharon was ahead of the curve: American Jewry did follow his advice—22 years later.
In the spring of 2002, Israel was rocked by a series of major Arab terrorist attacks, including a suicide bombing at a Passover seder in Netanya, which killed 30 civilians, most of them elderly and many of them Holocaust survivors.
Sharon, who by then was prime minister, ordered Operation Defensive Shield, a major counter-terror offensive throughout the West Bank territories. More than 20,000 Israeli soldiers were mobilized to carry out hundreds of raids, which went on for several weeks and included capturing or killing numerous terrorists, seizing weapons depots, and sealing up safe houses.
Within days, the George W. Bush administration was pressing Sharon to halt the operation and withdraw the troops. American Jews responded precisely as Sharon had been hoping back in 1980: on April 15, 2002, more than 100,000 protesters gathered near the White House to support Israel’s actions. Many evangelical Christians also joined the rally.
The New York Times reported that the rally illustrated the strong support for Israel, and uneasiness over President Bush’s position, among an emerging coalition of Jews and conservative Christians. According to the Times, the president “attempted to mollify the conservatives” by sending “one of the most hawkish members of his administration, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz,” to speak at the rally. But Wolfowitz was greeted with boos and chants of “No More Arafat!”
In 2002, unlike in 1980, there were no Jewish leaders “taking umbrage” at the idea of such a rally, and no expressions of fear that supporting Israel would cause a backlash among the American public. Sharon had been vindicated, and a new standard for pro-Israel activism in the United States was beginning to take shape.
Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/ariel-sharons-forgotten-legacy-jews-marching-white-house/#rOOZgI5oIokwMeDW.99

Admin Sun 12 Jan 2014, 12:49 pm

http://www.timesofisrael.com/thousands-to-pay-last-respects-to-ariel-sharon-in-knesset/
Mourning Israelis file by Sharon’s body as it lies in state at Knesset
Netanyahu: He was ‘among the greatest’ military commanders in Jewish history; Joe Biden, other foreign dignitaries to attend funeral Monday; police tell drivers to avoid Jerusalem; Arab world reacts with joy

BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF January 12, 2014, 6:17 am Updated: January 12, 2014, 11:53 am

The body of former prime minister Ariel Sharon was laid out in state in the courtyard of the Knesset on Sunday, and Israelis were filing by and paying their last respects to the war hero and politician ahead of his funeral. Sharon died Saturday after eight years in a vegetative state. He was 85

Police anticipate that tens of thousands of people will travel to Jerusalem in the course of Sunday to pay respects to the former prime minister. President Shimon Peres and Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein laid wreaths in front of the casket. The public will be allowed to pass before the casket until 6 p.m.

The weekly cabinet meeting opened with a minute of silence in memory of Sharon, after which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eulogized his predecessor and longtime colleague — and sometimes rival — in the Likud party.

Sharon, he said, “was first and foremost a warrior and a commander, among the greatest military commanders produced by the Jewish people in recent times and throughout its history.” Netanyahu then listed the military campaigns in which Sharon had participated and praised him for his contributions to Israel’s security.

“In all his roles — as defense minister, housing minister, infrastructures minster, and foreign minister — Arik contributed to the State of Israel, as he did also as prime minister of Israel. I think that he represents the generation of Jewish fighters that our people established with the renewal of our independence.”

On Monday morning, the Knesset will hold a formal mourning ceremony, attended by the nation’s leaders and notable dignitaries, before his body is taken to the family’s Sycamore Ranch for burial.

Sharon’s death was announced just after 2 p.m. on Saturday, after his condition deteriorated for several weeks. The former prime minister had been fighting kidney failure and blood infection. He had been in a coma since suffering a debilitating stroke in 2006.

Gilad Sharon announces the death of his father, former prime minister Ariel Sharon, at the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Jan. 11, 2014. (Photo credit: Gideon Markowicz/Flash90)
Officials requested that drivers heading to the Knesset avoid the immediate area Sunday, instead parking at Teddy Stadium in the south of the city or at Latrun, to its west, and taking public transportation from there.

Among foreign dignitaries expected to visit Israel to bid farewell to Sharon are US Vice President Joe Biden, Quartet representative and former UK prime minister Tony Blair, Czech Prime Minister Jiri Rusnok, Russian parliamentary head Sergey Naryshkin, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Spanish Home Affairs Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz and Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander, according to a government statement.

At 2:30 p.m. Monday Sharon will be laid to rest at Sycamore Ranch (Havat Hashikmim) in the Negev. The funeral will be both a state and a military ceremony, given Sharon’s twin careers.

Though open to the public, room at the event will be limited, and seats will only be allocated to those with invitations. His casket will be carried by six major generals and he will be laid to rest alongside his second wife, Lily, who died in 2000.

Drivers planning to attend should park at Sapir College or Kibbutz Dorot and take shuttle buses from there, an official announcement said.

Sharon, whose nickname was “The Bulldozer,” cut a powerful yet divisive figure in Israeli politics for six decades. Fighting in Israel’s early wars, he earned a reputation as a maverick equally unafraid of enemies or superiors. As a security hawk and champion of the settler movement, he rose to become prime minister on a hard-line platform during the Second Intifada in 2000, yet the most lasting impression of him was seemingly left by his decision to pull out of the Gaza Strip in 2005.

After his death tributes poured in from Israeli and world leaders.
Peres issued a statement calling the 85-year-old leader a “dear friend” who had “lost his final battle.”

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who followed Sharon into Kadima in 2005 and replaced Sharon as prime minister and Kadima party head after the latter fell into a coma in January 2006, said his predecessor was “one of the State of Israel’s greatest soldiers and warriors before and since it was founded.”
Settler leaders and supporters were less effusive. MK Orit Strock of the nationalist-Orthodox Jewish Home party took to Facebook to say God deserved praise for removing Sharon from public life before he could uproot West Bank settlements as he had uprooted Gaza settlements.

US President Barack Obama praised “a leader who dedicated his life to the State of Israel.” In a White House statement, Obama said: “On behalf of the American people, Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to the family of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and to the people of Israel.” The statement reaffirmed “our unshakable commitment to Israel’s security. We continue to strive for lasting peace and security for the people of Israel, including through our commitment to the goal of two states living side-by-side in peace and security.”

George W. Bush, right, and Ariel Sharon, left, walk together at the end of a joint press conference in the Cross Hall of the White House in Washington in April, 2004. (photo credit: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
Former US president George W. Bush, who worked closely with Sharon when their terms overlapped, called Sharon a “partner in seeking security for the Holy Land and a better, peaceful Middle East.”

“I was honored to know this man of courage and call him friend,” he said.

In the Arab world and elsewhere, though, some focused on Sharon’s hawkish past, celebrating his passing.
In the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon, where Sharon was blamed for allowing a massacre in 1982, his death was met with joy.
“My heart beats with happiness because he is dead,” a Palestinian man in Shatila was quoted saying by the Lebanese Daily Star.
Senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub said it was a shame Sharon would never stand trial before an international tribune for his actions.
“Sharon was a criminal, responsible for the assassination of [Palestinian president Yasser] Arafat, and we would have hoped to see him appear before the International Criminal Court as a war criminal,” AFP quoted Rajoub saying.

PLO official Dr. Mustafa Barghouti told the BBC that the Palestinians had no positive memories of Sharon.
“Nobody should celebrate any death. But unfortunately I have to say that Mr. Sharon left no good memories with Palestinians. Unfortunately he had a path of war and aggression and a great failure in making peace with the Palestinian people,” he said.
Some Palestinians in the Gaza Strip celebrated Sharon’s death. Residents of Khan Younis took to the streets, burning photos of Sharon and handing out candies to passersby.
Human Rights Watch issued a statement lamenting the fact that Sharon would never stand trial. “It’s a shame that Sharon has gone to his grave without facing justice for his role in Sabra and Shatila and other abuses,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at the NGO, said.
Sharon led the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 as defense minister, but was forced to resign the post after a commission of inquiry found him responsible for failing to prevent the massacre by Christian Phalangists of Palestinian refugees in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila camps.

Born in 1928, Sharon fought in Israel’s War of Independence, where he commanded five ill-fated attempts to take the strategic post of Latrun.
In the 1950s he led a number of raids into Jordanian territory as reprisals for attacks on the young state.
Haim Bar-Lev (Center L) consults with Ariel Sharon (with bandage) and Moshe Dayan (cap) during the Yom Kippur War. (Photo credit: GPO/ Flash 90)
In 1967, he planned the IDF’s first divisional battle, against the Abu Agheila stronghold in the Sinai, completely on his own.
During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, he led Israeli troops across the Suez Canal, breaking the back of the Egyptian offensive. As his troops encircled Egypt’s Third Army, Sharon, a reserves officer at the time, instructed them to plant Israeli flags on the high ground, so that the Egyptians would look back across the water and see that they were trapped.

After being pushed out of the military, Sharon founded the hard-line Likud party, advocating for strong security and settlement expansion.
His visit to the Temple Mount as Likud party head in 2000 was seen by some as the spark for the Second Intifada, and several months later he was elected prime minister by a public hungry for security, amid suicide bombings and other attacks.
In mid-2005, he directed a unilateral withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip, ending a 38-year military control of the territory. It was a shocking turnaround for a man who had been a leading player in building Jewish settlements in captured territories.

He bolted the Likud party soon after and established the centrist Kadima party, where he was joined by Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni. He appeared on his way to an easy reelection when he suffered a severe stroke in January 2006. His deputy, Olmert, took over and was elected prime minister a few months later.

Sharon had a first, small stroke in December 2005 and was put on blood thinners before experiencing a severe brain hemorrhage on January 4, 2006. After spending months in the Jerusalem hospital where he was initially treated, Sharon was transferred to the long-term care facility at Tel Hashomer Hospital. He was taken home briefly at one point, but was returned to the hospital, where he had been since.

He is survived by his older sister Dita, his two living sons, Omri and Gilad, his daughter-in-law Inbal, and his six grandchildren.