by howard selznick
correspondent
Former Israeli military commander and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon lies near death in a Jerusalem hospital after two debilitating strokes in 2006. It’s understandable that two new biographies have recently been published, adding to the substantial literature on his controversial life.
As far back as 1970, Matti Shavitt wrote that Ariel Sharon’s command of Israeli paratroopers turned him into an admired, mystery-garbed figure, and further declared that Sharon merits a published biography. That statement was a prophecy.
Uri Dan’s “Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait” is about half interview and half narrative. The interviews are from May 1998, September 2004, and September 2005. The narrative seems to be based on Dan’s recollections, since there is no documentation, footnotes, or bibliography. However, there is a chronology of Sharon’s life and an index. Readers may learn something about Sharon’s state of mind during these interviews, but the author offers virtually no analysis.
Dan’s work reads like a campaign biography, which is no great surprise because he has been one of Sharon’s best friends and a journalistic confidante since they first met in 1954. Dan’s bias shows in many places. For example, his explanation of the numerous investigations of corruption and illegal campaign activities during Sharon’s political career was simple: a conspiracy and someone else’s fault. He rarely questions Sharon’s actions, except for the Gaza evacuation in 2005 to which Dan was vehemently opposed.
Nir Hefez’s and Gadi Bloom’s “Ariel Sharon: A Life” is better documented with a 3-page bibliography, but surprisingly neither footnotes nor index. Hefez and Bloom are also journalists but did not interview Sharon or his family “so as to write from an unbiased perspective” (read: unauthorized). This is more of a traditional biography, beginning with an account of his parents’ lives at the moshav Kfar Mahal and his own early life there in the 1920s through 1940s. Hefez and Bloom’s reliance on written documentation and interviews (but not with Sharon or his family) suggests an even-handed, less biased view than Dan’s.
Both books deal with seminal events in Sharon’s life that forged his character. He was born and raised in pre-state Israel in the 1920s and 1930s while facing a hostile Arab population. The description of the failed siege of Latrun during the War of Independence showed how Sharon developed ideas about battlefield doctrine that later made him a successful military commander. His stints as agriculture minister and other ministries illustrate how he forged Israel’s West Bank and Gaza settlement policies and practices.
Most of Sharon’s life seems to be about a man with an aggressive image frozen in the 1980s and earlier. Two previous biographies of Sharon have the word “warrior” in their title: his 1988 autobiography and “Israel’s Warrior-Politician” by Anita Miller, Jordan Miller and Sigalit Zetouni, published in 2002. A 1985 biography by Uzi Benziman is titled “Sharon: An Israeli Caesar,” mimicking the title of William Manchester’s voluminous life story of the imperious General Douglas MacArthur.
Sharon made his own warrior/Caesar image with his military exploits such as raiding fedayeen in the 1950s and ’60s and the Suez Canal crossing during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. His missions were daring and often at odds with the letter (but not the spirit) of the orders from his superiors. He did what he thought was necessary for the security of Israel, regardless of the politicians’ views.
Hafez and Bloom point out that his mellowing after being elected prime minister in 2001 was not taken seriously by his Israeli detractors and the international community. His support of the Gaza withdrawal was bitterly contested by his own party, Likud, at that time. Dan has virtually no discussion of Sharon’s change of heart.
Both books point out that Sharon always saw himself as the savior of the Jews. Perhaps the softening of his hard-edged image was his way of achieving that goal.
“Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait” by Uri Dan (320 pages. Palgrave Macmilan, $27.95)
“Ariel Sharon: A Life” by Nir Hefez and Gadi Bloom (490 pages, Random House, $29.95).
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California