January 17, 2014 | Quote
More on Ariel Sharon
“The Post-Sharon era began abruptly on January 5,” Peter Berkowitz wrote in a perceptive and far-seeing 2006 article for the Weekly Standard, describing how Sharon’s massive stroke affected the Israeli political spectrum and Israel’s standing in the region. Moreover, Sharon, wrote Berkowitz, “made his most enduring mark on Israeli politics by presiding over the formation of a powerful new consensus on national security.” Now more than eight years after the massive stroke that left the nearly legendary soldier and statesman in a coma, the tributes and reminiscences continue to roll in days after he finally succumbed Saturday.
Yesterday, Henry Kissinger wrote of Sharon’s journey from soldier to statesman. Sharon deplored America’s decision “to bring about a negotiated end of the [1973 Arab-Israeli] war. I was secretary of state at the time, and he missed few opportunities to chide me. The United States acted as it did then because we were convinced that, however vast the margin of victory, it would leave Israel with its historic challenge: how to translate victories over threats to its security into political coexistence with the societies it lived among. The Egyptian leader, Anwar Sadat, seemed to offer such a prospect.”
Benjamin Weinthal writes in the National Review of a meeting between Sharon and Sadat during the Egyptian president’s famous 1977 trip to Jerusalem. “I tried to catch you when you were on the side of the canal,” said Sadat, referring to Sharon’s gambit in the 1973 war. Mr. President, said Sharon, “now you have a chance to catch me as a friend.”