Author(s): Sharon Gilad

General

The year leading up to Ariel Sharonâs 2001 election as Israelâs prime minister was a particularly dire time for the country. At Camp David, Yasser Arafat had rejected the American-backed Israeli peace offer. Violence and terror became a near daily affair in Israel, thus effectively destroying the seven year-long Oslo initiative.
For decades, Ariel Sharon had personified Israelâs search for security, from his time as a soldier in the fledgling Israel Defense Forces to his years in the Knesset and as a minister in the government. During his election campaign for prime minister, he had declared his commitment to protect Israelis and restore the countryâs normal life. But the attack on the World Trade Center, the Iraq War, skyrocketing oil prices, and Iranâs nuclear program shook the Israeli state and concentrated the worldâs attention on the Middle East. They put Sharon in the direct center of the most pressing international affairs.
Ariel Sharon was in office five years, from his election in February 2001 until his stroke in January 2006 (he has been in a coma ever since). During that time he walked a fine line between waging war on those whose goal was to destroy his country and accommodating himself to allies who often seemed less than allies, and sometimes even less than friends. He built a wall to separate Israel from the West Bankâs suicide bombers. He incarcerated Yasser Arafat in Arafatâs Ramallah headquarters. In a stunning and unprecedented move, he withdrew Israelâs settlements from Gaza. Throughout his tenure he was in constant contact with world leaders and decision-makers: George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin, King Abdullah, Silvio Berlsusconi, Kofi Annan, Gerhardt Schroeder, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Jacques Chirac, Hosni Mubarak, Mahmoud Abbas, and others. But what the public knew of these interactions often differed dramatically from what went on in private.
Unbeknownst to his sons or his other close friends and advisors, Sharon kept meticulous notes on practically everything he did as prime minister and much that he had done previously. His exhaustive archives include diaries, day books, talking points for discussions with heads of state, assessments of those discussions, governmental instructions, military directives, observations on crucial issues, correspondence, reflections on world leaders, what he said to them and they to him, his inner thoughts, his strategies. Taken together, these documents constitute an intimate record of what was said and done by Sharon and his counterparts about some of the worldâs most crucial and dangerous issues. Gilad Sharon, his youngest son and close confidant throughout, has combed through his fatherâs files to create this extensive and riveting account of the controversial leaderâs life, with a particular focus on his five years in Israelâs highest office.