Ariel Sharon, former Israeli prime minister, dead at 85

In his autobiography, Sharon said he was outraged by the findings. “It was a stigmatization I rejected utterly,” he wrote.

Sharon stayed in the government as a minister without portfolio and pledged to remain in public life. “When I saw the weakness of the leadership, the hypocrisy, the hatred within Israel among Jews, when I saw the developments throughout the Middle East, I thought that I simply had to stay,” he wrote.

A journalist and friend, Uri Dan, predicted — famously and, as it turned out, accurately— “Those who didn’t want to see him as army chief got him as defense minister, and those who don’t want him as defense minister shall get him as prime minister.”

In 1983, Sharon filed a $50 million lawsuit against Time Magazine for alleging that Sharon, while defense minister, had discussed avenging the murder of Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel with Lebanese Christian militia leaders. Time said the discussion was held the day before the Sabra and Chatilla massacres. A six-member jury in New York concluded that the Time report was false but acquitted the magazine of libel, saying it published the report in good faith.

Later, an Israeli court rejected a libel suit filed by Sharon against the Haaretz daily over a 1991 article that claimed he misled Begin about his military intentions in Lebanon. Israel would remain entangled in Lebanon until 2000.

Sharon gradually rehabilitated himself, serving in parliament and using various Cabinet posts to build dozens of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza despite international protests.

As foreign minister in 1998, Sharon called on Jewish settlers to grab as much land as possible before a permanent territorial agreement was reached with the Palestinians.

“Everyone there should move, should run, should grab more hills, expand the territory. Everything that’s grabbed will be in our hands, everything that we don’t grab will be in their hands,” he said.

He also played a leading role in the absorption of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

Sharon’s demonstrative visit to the Temple Mount, or Haram as-Sharif, soon followed. Palestinian riots escalated into a full-fledged uprising that would claim more than 3,000 Palestinian and 1,000 Israeli lives.

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