0:00:04 > 0:00:09A Napoleonic figure in Israel's history, with all that that implies.
0:00:10 > 0:00:14He's not someone that you see and you can stay indifferent about.
0:00:14 > 0:00:15You have an opinion.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17You love him or you hate him,
0:00:17 > 0:00:20you're afraid of him or you want to be with him.
0:00:20 > 0:00:22He had so much political strength
0:00:22 > 0:00:25that he could do almost everything he wanted.
0:00:25 > 0:00:30A brilliant battlefield soldier who consistently disobeyed orders.
0:00:33 > 0:00:37There was this tension, which I never really resolved,
0:00:37 > 0:00:40between the charming, courteous, grandfatherly figure
0:00:40 > 0:00:43beloved by so many people in Israel,
0:00:43 > 0:00:49and the brutal, savage, violent, often irrational military commander
0:00:49 > 0:00:53who believed in savage retaliation against the Arabs.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57Sharon shunned dialogue,
0:00:57 > 0:01:00almost always preferring the iron fist.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03Sharon was a very intelligent man.
0:01:03 > 0:01:08He used bully tactics to achieve his ends,
0:01:08 > 0:01:11but his ends were always very cerebral
0:01:11 > 0:01:16and always very carefully worked out beforehand.
0:01:16 > 0:01:19He was known as "the godfather of the settlements",
0:01:19 > 0:01:21but he finally withdrew settlers from Gaza.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25The decision about the disengagement plan
0:01:25 > 0:01:29is the most difficult of all.
0:01:29 > 0:01:35He will be remembered as the man who reneged on his own ideology.
0:01:35 > 0:01:39The one who built the settlement, and destroyed it.
0:01:39 > 0:01:44But a debilitating stroke cut his Prime Ministerial career short.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47Sharon was in a coma for years,
0:01:47 > 0:01:49leaving Israel to weigh up his legacy.
0:01:50 > 0:01:57He made it legitimate in Israeli political life
0:01:57 > 0:01:59for settlements to be evacuated.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02He did more harm to the state of Israel
0:02:02 > 0:02:07than any Israeli state citizen I know until this very day.
0:02:22 > 0:02:27Born in 1928 to educated parents of Russian origin,
0:02:27 > 0:02:32Arik, as he was called, lived on a farm in a socialist cooperative -
0:02:32 > 0:02:35a "moshav" - at K'far Malal, a village north of Tel Aviv
0:02:35 > 0:02:37in British-ruled Palestine.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50His childhood bred in him a love of the land
0:02:50 > 0:02:52that was never to leave him.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55His mother, like his father, was stubbornly independent -
0:02:55 > 0:02:59IN the cooperative but not OF it, a cut above their neighbours
0:02:59 > 0:03:01and fenced off from them.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04TRANSLATED:
0:03:32 > 0:03:36His father was strict, teaching his son never to be a coward
0:03:36 > 0:03:40and arming him with a dagger to help guard their orchard from Arabs.
0:03:40 > 0:03:45Arik was a lonely lad who enjoyed his schooling.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48But when it came to supporting classmates in a strike,
0:03:48 > 0:03:52he reflected the family spirit. He was uncompromising.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56We asked Arik, "Why don't you come with us, to strike?
0:03:56 > 0:04:04"We all are striking. We think that the teacher... did something that we didn't like."
0:04:04 > 0:04:07So he said... His answer was very simple.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10"I didn't come to strike in school.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13"I came to learn in school."
0:04:13 > 0:04:16We were on strike for three days.
0:04:16 > 0:04:19And Arik didn't change his mind, no.
0:04:19 > 0:04:23We came back to the class, we got punished.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26Arik didn't get punished, no.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32Arab villages dotted the landscape.
0:04:32 > 0:04:36These were turbulent times and, as Sharon himself was later to write,
0:04:36 > 0:04:39life never seemed safe.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42These were the formative years of Ariel Sharon,
0:04:42 > 0:04:46fearing the Arabs, hating the Arabs,
0:04:46 > 0:04:50seeing the Arabs as the natural, eternal enemy.
0:04:50 > 0:04:55Quarrelling with everybody around, sticking to his own beliefs,
0:04:55 > 0:04:59being absolutely certain that you are right,
0:04:59 > 0:05:02everybody else...is wrong.
0:05:02 > 0:05:07At 17, Ariel Sharon joined the semi-underground Haganah,
0:05:07 > 0:05:09precursor to Israel's army.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12British rule in Palestine was in deep trouble.
0:05:12 > 0:05:15Israel declared independence in 1948.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19Her Arab neighbours attacked,
0:05:19 > 0:05:24Sharon was wounded and never again trusted Generals in their bunkers.
0:05:24 > 0:05:29He remained a fighter and, under the wing of the legendary Moshe Dayan,
0:05:29 > 0:05:32he was by 1953 commanding Unit 101,
0:05:32 > 0:05:38an elite commando force designed to punish marauding Palestinian guerrillas.
0:05:38 > 0:05:42He gave us the feeling that we could do everything,
0:05:42 > 0:05:45because...he never said,
0:05:45 > 0:05:48"Listen, I'm not sure
0:05:48 > 0:05:50"that you can do it."
0:05:50 > 0:05:54We used to take many risks, really,
0:05:54 > 0:05:57not just in the battle -
0:05:57 > 0:06:01to cross mountain, to cross river, to do such things.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05'The tiny village of Qibya on the Israel-Jordan border is in ruins
0:06:05 > 0:06:10'as survivors tell how troops struck across the frontier at night.
0:06:11 > 0:06:16'They accuse Israeli forces of levelling buildings with grenades, shellfire and explosives,
0:06:16 > 0:06:19'trapping entire families in the rubble.
0:06:19 > 0:06:24'The attack prompts the US, England and France to deliver their sharpest rebuke to Israel
0:06:24 > 0:06:28'since its founding and to demand action to punish the guilty troops.'
0:06:29 > 0:06:33Qibya, it was accident, it was an accident,
0:06:33 > 0:06:37because...no-one...
0:06:37 > 0:06:41thought - for sure, not Arik -
0:06:41 > 0:06:44that something like this can happen.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47I was myself there with the unit,
0:06:47 > 0:06:51and I myself checked most of the buildings
0:06:51 > 0:06:53that were destroyed.
0:06:53 > 0:06:57And I can tell you that I didn't see anybody there.
0:06:57 > 0:07:01It is clear that he got an order to kill as many people as possible,
0:07:01 > 0:07:03this was a written order he got.
0:07:03 > 0:07:08This must be remembered. It was not something which he initiated.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11The order was to kill as many people as possible.
0:07:11 > 0:07:18Now, he went there and he killed everybody, just...blew up the houses with the people inside them.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22His legacy will always be one of massacres,
0:07:22 > 0:07:25dating back to the 1950s, even.
0:07:25 > 0:07:28The establishment of the notorious 101 Unit,
0:07:28 > 0:07:31the very painful Qibya massacre,
0:07:31 > 0:07:35a massacre of children and woman and...
0:07:35 > 0:07:40tearing down homes, blowing up homes and whole families.
0:07:41 > 0:07:46The death toll was 69 Palestinians, a retaliation for the murder of three Israelis.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49The world at large condemned the raid
0:07:49 > 0:07:52but Israel's Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion -
0:07:52 > 0:07:56seen here with Sharon - stood by his protege.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00TRANSLATED:
0:08:26 > 0:08:29Sharon then took over the army's paratroopers,
0:08:29 > 0:08:32but in the 1956 Suez campaign against Egypt,
0:08:32 > 0:08:34he disobeyed orders,
0:08:34 > 0:08:38dispatching a parachute unit to capture the Mitla Pass in Sinai,
0:08:38 > 0:08:41at heavy cost to his troops.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45Criticised later by Ben-Gurion, he conceded, "Sometimes I make a mistake."
0:08:47 > 0:08:51Yael Dayan was a war reporter who became a Labour MP.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55She was attached to Sharon's division in 1967
0:08:55 > 0:08:57and saw another side of the man.
0:08:57 > 0:08:59He was very good with people,
0:08:59 > 0:09:02I suppose that's what impressed me.
0:09:02 > 0:09:06He was very calm. He did not panic or...
0:09:06 > 0:09:12He talked to the drivers and the cooks and the machine-gunners
0:09:12 > 0:09:17the same way that he would talk to the Chief of Staff or to his superiors.
0:09:17 > 0:09:22He had a sense of humour bordering on the cynic,
0:09:22 > 0:09:25and it was a very good atmosphere.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31He was in his element, the battlefield was his element.
0:09:31 > 0:09:36In the Six Day War, aged 38, a Major-General by now,
0:09:36 > 0:09:40Sharon showed his gift as a battlefield commander,
0:09:40 > 0:09:43knocking the enemy off-balance. His Sinai battle plan
0:09:43 > 0:09:46is still taught as a model of its kind.
0:09:46 > 0:09:51Sharon in the course of time became a very good General,
0:09:51 > 0:09:55it has to be said. A General...a tactical General
0:09:55 > 0:09:58rather than a strategic General,
0:09:58 > 0:10:05somebody resembling Patton more than General Eisenhower.
0:10:05 > 0:10:10He knew each and every place
0:10:10 > 0:10:12in the battlefield.
0:10:12 > 0:10:16And I think that he had a kind of talent
0:10:16 > 0:10:20that when he was watching the map,
0:10:20 > 0:10:27it's my imagination, but I think that he saw the actual...land.
0:10:27 > 0:10:32Not the map, not the piece of paper, but he saw the hills, the dunes,
0:10:32 > 0:10:35the canals, everything.
0:10:35 > 0:10:40But despite his success on the battlefield,
0:10:40 > 0:10:42Sharon's private life was marked with tragedy.
0:10:42 > 0:10:48His son Gur died aged 10 whilst playing with an antique gun.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51Gur's mother, Sharon's first wife,
0:10:51 > 0:10:54had already died in a car crash in 1962.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57Sharon was now overcome with grief.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00His troops mourned his loss with him.
0:11:02 > 0:11:04Then, it was back to business.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08Sharon was deputed to clamp down on the Gaza Strip in 1971,
0:11:08 > 0:11:11pursuing PLO guerrillas, 700 or 800 of them.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14And, as ever, he punched hard.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24TRANSLATED: In 1970, we sat near Gaza and he said to me,
0:11:24 > 0:11:25"Eli, I will put an end
0:11:25 > 0:11:30"to terror in Gaza." I said, "Arik, I read all the books on terrorism
0:11:30 > 0:11:35"and I never read that anyone has ever managed to end terrorism by force." He said to me,
0:11:35 > 0:11:39"Come back in three or four months and see for yourself."
0:11:39 > 0:11:44Sharon tamed Gaza with, as he put it, "goodwill and humane values".
0:11:44 > 0:11:48But Palestinian militants were killed and arrested,
0:11:48 > 0:11:53thousands of houses demolished, roads driven ruthlessly through the refugee camps.
0:11:53 > 0:11:55He was dubbed "The Bulldozer".
0:12:01 > 0:12:06He was a senior commander going with the units from house to house,
0:12:06 > 0:12:10from bunker to bunker, from orange grove to orange grove,
0:12:10 > 0:12:12to explain what he meant.
0:12:12 > 0:12:15Three months later, Gaza was quiet.
0:12:15 > 0:12:19The terror was crushed with an iron fist, with a vicious hand.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22He cast fear in Gaza. He was feared.
0:12:24 > 0:12:28Feared in Gaza and unloved by his fellow Generals,
0:12:28 > 0:12:32Sharon's maverick behaviour led them to block his promotion
0:12:32 > 0:12:35and the top job of Chief of Staff eluded him.
0:12:35 > 0:12:37He believed in his way
0:12:37 > 0:12:45and it was very hard for him to accept...his commander decision.
0:12:45 > 0:12:51Eh, he was a kind of trouble-maker along the years.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53D'you believe orders should always be obeyed?
0:12:53 > 0:12:57I believe that orders should be obeyed
0:12:57 > 0:12:59but sometimes you come to situation
0:12:59 > 0:13:03where you have to think about the orders that you get.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06To whom should you be loyal, or more loyal?
0:13:06 > 0:13:10To your troops... or to your superiors?
0:13:10 > 0:13:14And I must tell you that... in many times
0:13:14 > 0:13:18I believe you must be more loyal to your troops
0:13:18 > 0:13:20than to your superiors.
0:13:20 > 0:13:23HE SHOUTS TO HIS DOG
0:13:27 > 0:13:31Sharon, at 45, was shunted into the army reserve.
0:13:31 > 0:13:34The land, though, was in his blood.
0:13:34 > 0:13:37"When you know every hill and wadi and orchard," he wrote later,
0:13:37 > 0:13:40"when your family is there, that is when you have power."
0:13:40 > 0:13:45He bought a big farm in southern Israel with his wife, Lily,
0:13:45 > 0:13:48a turning point in his life.
0:13:48 > 0:13:53The soldier-farmer moved into politics, typically doing it with a bang,
0:13:53 > 0:13:57creating a new centre-right party coalition called Likud - Unity -
0:13:57 > 0:14:02and teaming up with Menachem Begin, the future Prime Minister.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05He had considerable impact on Israeli politics
0:14:05 > 0:14:08by establishing the Likud...
0:14:08 > 0:14:11because until he established the Likud,
0:14:11 > 0:14:16Israel was dominated by the Labour Party and by the Labour movement.
0:14:16 > 0:14:18By creating the Likud,
0:14:18 > 0:14:23he offered the Israeli audience a political alternative,
0:14:23 > 0:14:26and because of that, really,
0:14:26 > 0:14:31we started a period when government changed.
0:14:31 > 0:14:37The Suez Canal was Sharon's prescient location for his first party political broadcast.
0:14:53 > 0:14:58It was autumn 1973. Israeli troops shared his complacency.
0:14:58 > 0:15:00HE WHISTLES
0:15:15 > 0:15:20On Yom Kippur, Judaism's most sacred holiday, Egypt and Syria attacked.
0:15:20 > 0:15:22They caught the Israelis napping.
0:15:22 > 0:15:25When the war started,
0:15:25 > 0:15:29about 2,000 Egyptian artillery guns
0:15:29 > 0:15:34opened fire. Dozens of aircraft were bombing us.
0:15:35 > 0:15:39So all the Sinai Desert was shaking.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42It was unbelievable.
0:15:46 > 0:15:50Most of my brigade were either injured or killed.
0:15:50 > 0:15:58And then Arik Sharon came as a kind of reinforcement unit immediately.
0:15:58 > 0:16:01He gave us the feeling...
0:16:02 > 0:16:09..that we will be able eventually to win the war.
0:16:09 > 0:16:13He was quiet, precise, determined...
0:16:13 > 0:16:17and very human and very kind,
0:16:17 > 0:16:20because he knew by then
0:16:20 > 0:16:27that we went through hell until the reserve unit came.
0:16:27 > 0:16:33Sharon at his battlefield best, but even here his wife and two boys remained an inspiration,
0:16:33 > 0:16:38as Geula Cohen discovered during the war while she was staying with Lily.
0:16:38 > 0:16:44One day she answered the phone and all of a sudden I hear her singing.
0:16:44 > 0:16:50So I...I-I couldn't understand.
0:16:50 > 0:16:55I knew that she is talking to him in the middle of the war -
0:16:55 > 0:17:01and what a war - and she's singing a very lyrical song.
0:17:01 > 0:17:06And she told me that it's like for him the ammunition.
0:17:06 > 0:17:12For, this is his weapon - the lyrical song.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16For me it was to know the man again and again,
0:17:16 > 0:17:18to love him more and more,
0:17:18 > 0:17:22and to believe that we must win.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26With such songs, with such commanders, we will win.
0:17:31 > 0:17:34Sharon was at loggerheads as ever with fellow generals,
0:17:34 > 0:17:38but it was HIS historic crossing of the Suez Canal
0:17:38 > 0:17:42that won the 1973 war on the Egyptian front.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45The bridges were not ready...yet.
0:17:47 > 0:17:51And Arik Sharon took a very brave decision
0:17:51 > 0:17:58to start the operation knowing that during the coming hours...
0:17:59 > 0:18:02..everything would be settled.
0:18:02 > 0:18:04And it was very risky.
0:18:10 > 0:18:17Because of Arik Sharon's leadership, we continued to cross the Suez Canal,
0:18:17 > 0:18:22and to fight, and I think that the people of Israel
0:18:22 > 0:18:24owe a lot to Arik Sharon.
0:18:25 > 0:18:30Investigated later and acquitted of the charge of disobeying orders,
0:18:30 > 0:18:35he was hailed as the Israeli hero of the Yom Kippur War.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39"Arik, King of Israel" was the popular cry.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43Your now famous canal crossing in October
0:18:43 > 0:18:45has been variously described
0:18:45 > 0:18:49as a brilliant manoeuvre and military madness.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52Which description is true?
0:18:52 > 0:18:54I'm afraid both are true!
0:18:54 > 0:18:59Because...without...madness,
0:18:59 > 0:19:03I don't believe that anybody would have done it.
0:19:03 > 0:19:06To believe that you can do it in one night,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09a certain element of madness should be there.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12But I would call it a positive madness!
0:19:12 > 0:19:14After the Yom Kippur War,
0:19:14 > 0:19:17he published a call to his soldiers
0:19:17 > 0:19:20in which he more or less blamed the government
0:19:20 > 0:19:23for what we then perceived, or what many then perceived,
0:19:23 > 0:19:26as the disaster of the war, the surprise of the war,
0:19:26 > 0:19:31and in the call, he said, "Now I'm going back to the civilian arena,
0:19:31 > 0:19:35"and I expect that you will follow me there, as well."
0:19:35 > 0:19:41Now, in Israeli...terms of what is right and what is wrong,
0:19:41 > 0:19:44involving politics with the army - it was a scandal.
0:19:44 > 0:19:51He used very deliberately his reputation as a military hero to gain political benefits.
0:19:51 > 0:19:58Israel's 1977 election was a crossroads for the land,
0:19:58 > 0:20:01ending almost 30 years of Labour Party rule.
0:20:01 > 0:20:05Relatively liberal Zionism gave way to right-wing nationalism.
0:20:05 > 0:20:10Sharon became Minister of Agriculture with Menachem Begin as the new Prime Minister.
0:20:10 > 0:20:12What occupied territories?
0:20:12 > 0:20:15If you mean Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip,
0:20:15 > 0:20:18they are liberated territories.
0:20:18 > 0:20:23They are part, an integral part, of the Land of Israel.
0:20:26 > 0:20:31Populating these territories with Jewish settlements became a priority.
0:20:31 > 0:20:33Sharon was the godfather of settlement,
0:20:33 > 0:20:40turning tented outposts into small towns, with a consistent policy of expansion.
0:20:40 > 0:20:44Sharon also saw this in military terms as a security issue.
0:20:44 > 0:20:50But the dream was of a greater Israel that Messianic Zionists believed was theirs.
0:20:50 > 0:20:52His greatest achievement is
0:20:52 > 0:20:55to settle the historical...
0:20:56 > 0:21:02..places of the people of Israel after the Six Day War.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07He was the one who... Who changed our map.
0:21:07 > 0:21:13It is the map, the road map of... the historical road map of ours.
0:21:13 > 0:21:19And I'm sure that it will stay this way or other way. You can't... You can't change it any more.
0:21:19 > 0:21:25And this was Sharon's message, "The land is ours - all of it, Gaza included."
0:21:38 > 0:21:44The essence of everything in the eyes of Sharon, and people like him,
0:21:44 > 0:21:48is the war between Israel and the Arabs.
0:21:48 > 0:21:51This is the beginning and the end of everything.
0:21:51 > 0:21:53The war is given.
0:21:53 > 0:21:59It is a fact. It cannot end. There never will be peace. The Arabs will never accept us.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02Now, the settlement effort is a weapon of war.
0:22:02 > 0:22:07The bulldozer is more effective in that than the tank.
0:22:07 > 0:22:11The tank conquers territory, but to hold the territory, you need the bulldozer.
0:22:11 > 0:22:16You have to change the landscape and turn the Arab landscape into a Jewish landscape.
0:22:18 > 0:22:24The pioneer settlers called themselves Gush Emunim - Bloc of the Faithful.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27Most, unlike Sharon, were religiously motivated.
0:22:27 > 0:22:32But with government help, secular Jews were to join them, and Sharon was their patron.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36They had the spark, and he took this spark
0:22:36 > 0:22:41and turned it into a very, very great fire.
0:22:41 > 0:22:46And there is no one settlement in Judea and Samaria
0:22:46 > 0:22:49that his fingerprints are not in.
0:22:49 > 0:22:55Sharon the soldier, eyeing the narrowness of Israel between the West Bank and the Mediterranean,
0:22:55 > 0:22:59explained to me why settlement was a matter of security,
0:22:59 > 0:23:02but also of Zionist import.
0:23:02 > 0:23:09We had a problem here. How to keep in our hands...the high...
0:23:09 > 0:23:16important strategic terrain, which was overlooking the coastal plain.
0:23:16 > 0:23:20How to keep in our hands and how to prevent in the future,
0:23:20 > 0:23:24when we'll come to any kind of political solution,
0:23:24 > 0:23:27from having it in the hands of anybody else.
0:23:28 > 0:23:35Yet it was Sharon who supervised the destruction of the Yamit Settlement in Sinai in 1982
0:23:35 > 0:23:40following a peace agreement with Egypt - an odd pre-echo of Gaza 23 years later.
0:23:41 > 0:23:47How did the godfather of settlement justify his change of heart?
0:23:47 > 0:23:50Sharon managed to dismantle Yamit
0:23:50 > 0:23:52because Sharon had no ideology
0:23:52 > 0:23:56whatever, in any...in any subject.
0:23:56 > 0:24:00And when he decided or got the approval to dismantle it,
0:24:00 > 0:24:05he had no big problem to dismantle it emotionally or psychologically
0:24:05 > 0:24:11because, according to my view, he was a very pragmatic person, even an opportunistic person.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14And that's the key to understanding him.
0:24:14 > 0:24:20This was the period that I didn't speak to him - for years after Yamit.
0:24:20 > 0:24:25Then he... It was 20 years ago
0:24:25 > 0:24:28or 15 years ago that he said,
0:24:28 > 0:24:32"I regret what I did. It was a mistake,
0:24:32 > 0:24:36"and never I'll repeat it again. I'll never repeat it again."
0:24:36 > 0:24:43Sharon had become Defence Minister in 1981 - a real prize given his failure to become Chief of Staff.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47His real aim in life was to become Minister of Defence.
0:24:47 > 0:24:50Begin did not want to give him the job.
0:24:50 > 0:24:53He gave it to Ezar Weissmann.
0:24:53 > 0:24:58Begin was afraid of Sharon. He once said, jokingly,
0:24:58 > 0:25:04that if Sharon becomes Minister of Defence, he'll surround the Knesset with his tanks.
0:25:04 > 0:25:07It was a joke, but...
0:25:07 > 0:25:09a telling joke.
0:25:09 > 0:25:15But four years later in '81, he had no choice. Weissman was dead.
0:25:15 > 0:25:20He had no valid reason to prevent Sharon - a famous general, a victorious general -
0:25:20 > 0:25:23from assuming this post, and he became Minister of Defence.
0:25:43 > 0:25:45Power at last for Sharon,
0:25:45 > 0:25:48but he was, as Alexander Haig, the US Secretary of State,
0:25:48 > 0:25:51was to discover when he met him in Washington,
0:25:51 > 0:25:54still a member of the awkward squad.
0:25:54 > 0:26:02His first greeting to me was to pound the table...very...
0:26:02 > 0:26:07very noisily and say, "When are you going to start to treat us as an ally?"
0:26:07 > 0:26:12I replied and mimicked him, and pounded the table equally hard
0:26:12 > 0:26:16and said, "When you begin acting like an ally."
0:26:16 > 0:26:18So that began the conference.
0:26:19 > 0:26:23Sharon's next adventure was the invasion of Lebanon,
0:26:23 > 0:26:26against the PLO leader Yasser Arafat,
0:26:26 > 0:26:29who was Beirut-based, and controlling the militant groups
0:26:29 > 0:26:32who fired rockets from Lebanon into Israel.
0:26:32 > 0:26:34Sharon saw his opportunity
0:26:34 > 0:26:39after a particularly heavy rocketing of Galilee.
0:26:39 > 0:26:44Israel's main ally, the United States, was dismayed.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47Their worry was the risk of provoking Syria,
0:26:47 > 0:26:51whose army had been deployed in Lebanon for the past six years.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54I wanted to really impress him
0:26:54 > 0:26:57with the dangers that he was toying with.
0:26:57 > 0:27:00And I told him in no uncertain terms
0:27:00 > 0:27:05that this was not going to be anything that would be taken lightly,
0:27:05 > 0:27:09reiterating our policy and warning against the conflict.
0:27:09 > 0:27:16Israeli tanks were only supposed to clear Palestinian guerrillas out of the Lebanese border zone.
0:27:16 > 0:27:21But Sharon had a grander scheme, a drive all the way to Beirut -
0:27:21 > 0:27:23not quite what he'd told his cabinet colleagues.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27When the decision was taken to invade Lebanon,
0:27:27 > 0:27:31he spoke of occupying 40km.
0:27:31 > 0:27:34And then on the second day of the war,
0:27:34 > 0:27:40I began to realise that really he's trying to push the army further on,
0:27:40 > 0:27:45and that he's using all sorts of pretexts in order to explain it
0:27:45 > 0:27:50and create the impression that it's only for a short...
0:27:50 > 0:27:54for a very short distance.
0:27:54 > 0:27:57And on the third day, I realised that he was deceiving us,
0:27:57 > 0:28:01that, actually, he has in mind something entirely different.
0:28:21 > 0:28:27And the result was, of course, that one kilometre was added to another
0:28:27 > 0:28:30and, in the course of time, he reached Beirut.
0:28:30 > 0:28:34Several cabinet ministers have said publicly that you deceived them.
0:28:34 > 0:28:39That you implied you were only going to go 25 miles and went to Beirut.
0:28:39 > 0:28:42I never deceived any of them.
0:28:42 > 0:28:46And every step that was taken in Lebanon
0:28:46 > 0:28:51was as a result of a cabinet meeting
0:28:51 > 0:28:55or a cabinet resolution. Every step.
0:28:55 > 0:29:01Beirut was besieged in a three-month campaign,
0:29:01 > 0:29:06with Sharon improvising daily and informing his cabinet colleagues bit by bit.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09The man himself turned up to view the scene.
0:29:09 > 0:29:13The campaign was brutal, killing at least 15,000 civilians.
0:29:16 > 0:29:22One would have to say that from an Israeli point of view, what they did was justified.
0:29:22 > 0:29:25They did it a little heavy-handedly.
0:29:25 > 0:29:31From an American point of view, they managed to split the administration in Washington -
0:29:31 > 0:29:35the Reagan administration - right down the middle.
0:29:35 > 0:29:38SINGING
0:29:49 > 0:29:52Under an American-brokered agreement,
0:29:52 > 0:29:56some 10,000 of Yasser Arafat's guerrillas quit the Lebanon.
0:29:56 > 0:29:58For Sharon - a tactical success.
0:29:58 > 0:30:04But his larger strategy for redesigning the Middle East was a failure.
0:30:04 > 0:30:08Arafat was forced to board ship and flee the land.
0:30:14 > 0:30:19Sharon failed in particular in one of his key ambitions.
0:30:19 > 0:30:25He believed that by driving the PLO out of Lebanon, he would defeat Palestinian nationalism at the root,
0:30:25 > 0:30:29and that was nonsense. That was shown as nonsense when
0:30:29 > 0:30:34the first intifada broke out in the occupied territories in 1987.
0:30:34 > 0:30:38He didn't realise that he created a vacuum,
0:30:38 > 0:30:42in which a much worse element came into power in Lebanon.
0:30:42 > 0:30:45And instead of the PLO we've got Hezbollah,
0:30:45 > 0:30:48which hardly existed before the Lebanese war.
0:30:48 > 0:30:52And so he was really the father of Hezbollah.
0:30:52 > 0:30:56Worse was to follow. Sharon let his Lebanese Christian allies
0:30:56 > 0:31:01into the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila.
0:31:01 > 0:31:05Putting the Falangists, who were professional murderers,
0:31:05 > 0:31:09who already had a long record of atrocities in Palestinian camps,
0:31:09 > 0:31:14putting them into the refugee camps, you knew what the outcome was.
0:31:14 > 0:31:19I once said that you put a snake in the cradle of a baby -
0:31:19 > 0:31:25poisonous snake - you don't have to prove you wanted to kill the baby.
0:31:29 > 0:31:33Sharon's troops lit the skies with their flares to help the Falangists,
0:31:33 > 0:31:40Inside the camps, the Falangists butchered hundreds of Palestinians and their families.
0:31:40 > 0:31:44Israeli forces did nothing to stop them.
0:31:46 > 0:31:48The world was appalled.
0:32:26 > 0:32:32It remains one very dark chapter, for which Sharon was responsible,
0:32:32 > 0:32:34and he will be held responsible
0:32:34 > 0:32:37throughout history.
0:32:37 > 0:32:41But that doesn't mean he wasn't responsible for an ongoing,
0:32:41 > 0:32:45systematic, incremental policy of bloodshed
0:32:45 > 0:32:49and of violence and militarism and oppression.
0:32:52 > 0:32:55Many Israelis too were horrified.
0:32:55 > 0:32:59Some 400,000 of them took to the streets in the biggest demonstration
0:32:59 > 0:33:05the country had seen. This was the humane voice of Israel talking.
0:33:05 > 0:33:08Sharon's name was immutably sullied.
0:33:08 > 0:33:14And with Israel's cabinet against him, he was to be sacked as Defence Minister.
0:33:18 > 0:33:24'The commission declares that Sharon holds personal responsibility
0:33:24 > 0:33:27'and recommends he resign his post as Defence Minister.'
0:33:27 > 0:33:31Of course, he deceived the Prime Minister.
0:33:31 > 0:33:34The Prime Minister realised it in the end.
0:33:34 > 0:33:39And that affected him and sent him into a depression.
0:33:39 > 0:33:46He retired from public life and very soon after that he died.
0:33:46 > 0:33:53Sharon, once again, retreated with his wife Lily to the farm.
0:33:53 > 0:33:57Surprisingly, despite Sabra and Shatila, he survived politically.
0:33:57 > 0:34:01No longer Defence Minister, but still in the cabinet.
0:34:01 > 0:34:06He felt betrayed by his colleagues' acceptance of the damning report.
0:34:06 > 0:34:09I'm the only Minister of Defence in the world,
0:34:09 > 0:34:12the only one,
0:34:12 > 0:34:16who left his post
0:34:16 > 0:34:19and went back to work on a tractor
0:34:19 > 0:34:21on his farm
0:34:21 > 0:34:27as a result of what Christians did to Muslims. The only one!
0:34:27 > 0:34:34But the time he spent with Lily, he later wrote, "was more healing than anything else could possibly be."
0:34:34 > 0:34:37For her, Arik was God.
0:34:37 > 0:34:41I have seldom seen such adoration.
0:34:41 > 0:34:46And it was very moving, actually.
0:34:46 > 0:34:52And he was good to her. I mean, it wasn't a one-sided thing.
0:34:52 > 0:34:57His family and his land was his strength and his shelter.
0:34:57 > 0:35:02I remember him telling me once
0:35:02 > 0:35:08that his strength does not come from any political apparatus of any kind.
0:35:08 > 0:35:10It comes from the land and the family.
0:35:10 > 0:35:14That's why it was important for him.
0:35:14 > 0:35:17It's important to realise with Sharon
0:35:17 > 0:35:20that he's not an entirely rational man.
0:35:20 > 0:35:23There's this love of the land, love of classical music.
0:35:23 > 0:35:28Very powerful emotions at work.
0:35:28 > 0:35:33Deep, deep attachment to the Jewish people and the land of Israel.
0:35:33 > 0:35:38A belief that Israel has to stand on its own. A contempt for outsiders.
0:35:38 > 0:35:44And this sort of drive that Israel had to do it on her own.
0:35:54 > 0:35:57Many Israelis supported him.
0:35:57 > 0:36:01There were demonstrations against him, but also those in his favour.
0:36:01 > 0:36:06Just as Israel has so often been divided, so was the public attitude to Sharon.
0:36:11 > 0:36:17He drove his tractor, but his political career was far from ruined.
0:36:17 > 0:36:22He was still in the cabinet and continued to fund Jewish settlement in occupied lands
0:36:22 > 0:36:26whilst campaigning for more Jewish immigration to Israel.
0:36:26 > 0:36:32Out of sight quite often, like Yasser Arafat, but never out of mind.
0:36:38 > 0:36:43Arafat himself returned in 1994 to the Gaza Strip.
0:36:43 > 0:36:45It was a time of hope,
0:36:45 > 0:36:48of the Oslo Peace Accords of the Labour government,
0:36:48 > 0:36:52which began a dialogue with Arafat and the Palestinians.
0:36:52 > 0:36:57Sharon, though, had opposed Oslo from the beginning.
0:37:29 > 0:37:35A somewhat inflammatory speech. Little did he realise that a month later, Israel's PM Yitzhak Rabin
0:37:35 > 0:37:43was to be murdered by a Jewish religious zealot for pursuing peace. Likud returned to power.
0:37:43 > 0:37:48Sharon was back as Minister for National Infrastructure.
0:37:48 > 0:37:49It didn't last.
0:37:49 > 0:37:55In this yo-yo of Israeli power, Prime Minister Netanyahu also came and went.
0:37:55 > 0:38:00Neither he nor Sharon favoured dialogue with the Palestinians.
0:38:00 > 0:38:05At Camp David, though, Netanyahu's Labour successor Ehud Barak
0:38:05 > 0:38:09did make a bid for peace with Arafat. But it collapsed,
0:38:09 > 0:38:13with President Clinton blaming the Palestinian.
0:38:13 > 0:38:16Sharon was out of government, but not out of the headlines.
0:38:16 > 0:38:21In September 2000, he paid a politically charged visit
0:38:21 > 0:38:25to the Noble Sanctuary, the third holiest site in Islam.
0:38:25 > 0:38:29Things quickly turned sour. Shortly after,
0:38:29 > 0:38:34another Palestinian uprising started - the second intifada.
0:38:34 > 0:38:38There was no provocation here. It was from the other side.
0:38:38 > 0:38:44Sharon's visit to the mosque was deliberately designed
0:38:44 > 0:38:46to provoke the Palestinians,
0:38:46 > 0:38:49to unleash a whole new cycle of violence.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52We knew then that the situation was extremely volatile
0:38:52 > 0:38:56and we said this at that time to Ehud Barak.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07When he went to the Temple Mount it was a totally cynical move.
0:39:07 > 0:39:10He didn't go from religious motivation.
0:39:10 > 0:39:15Sharon wasn't a religious person. It was a totally cynical political move
0:39:15 > 0:39:21to embarrass the Ehud Barak government. And it succeeded.
0:39:21 > 0:39:27There is no question that the intifada brought Barak down,
0:39:27 > 0:39:30that violence helped elect Sharon.
0:39:30 > 0:39:35But I don't think it's accurate to say Sharon calculated that his visit
0:39:35 > 0:39:40to the Temple Mount would spark a violent response,
0:39:40 > 0:39:42which would then get him into office.
0:39:42 > 0:39:46That is simply a misreading of history.
0:39:46 > 0:39:48He was like a lightning rod.
0:39:48 > 0:39:52He always managed to attract and to create
0:39:52 > 0:39:56situations of volatility and extreme violence.
0:39:58 > 0:40:03Away from politics, Sharon's private life had been dealt a tragic blow.
0:40:03 > 0:40:10His beloved wife Lily died from cancer, a loss that he felt keenly.
0:40:10 > 0:40:15From now on, he would have to face the world on his own.
0:40:19 > 0:40:22Five months later, by now the Likud Party leader,
0:40:22 > 0:40:26he fought a formidable election campaign.
0:40:26 > 0:40:31His spin doctors portrayed him as Sharon the cuddly, family man.
0:40:33 > 0:40:35His luck was, as a politician,
0:40:35 > 0:40:40first of all he's an excellent politician, which was why he succeeded in politics.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43He was a born politician - not a statesman.
0:40:43 > 0:40:46He was the opposite of a statesman.
0:40:46 > 0:40:52Very cunning. And he knows how to present his views in a way that deceives the public.
0:40:52 > 0:40:57If he was able to deceive Menachem Begin, who was a shrewd politician,
0:40:57 > 0:41:00where is the surprise in the fact that he deceived the public?
0:41:02 > 0:41:06Escalating Palestinian violence played into Sharon's hands
0:41:06 > 0:41:09as Labour's Prime Minister faltered.
0:41:09 > 0:41:11Barak, in the face of the violence,
0:41:11 > 0:41:14continued to make concessions to Arafat.
0:41:14 > 0:41:18The Israeli people just rejected that notion
0:41:18 > 0:41:23that they would give more under fire.
0:41:23 > 0:41:26They were very angry about it
0:41:26 > 0:41:28and they wanted a tough response.
0:41:28 > 0:41:34And Sharon was in effect the epitome of the tough response.
0:41:37 > 0:41:41Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who had won the elections hands down.
0:41:41 > 0:41:44Forget Qibya, the Mitla Pass and Lebanon,
0:41:44 > 0:41:51in their fear and anger, Israelis turned to their trusty bulldozer. For Likud, a time of rejoicing.
0:41:54 > 0:41:58The day after his election win, he visited the Western Wall,
0:41:58 > 0:42:04Judaism's holiest shrine, adjoining the Al-Aqsa mosque where he'd caused such a rumpus the previous year.
0:42:04 > 0:42:09I will bring peace to the citizens of Israel...
0:42:09 > 0:42:13and stability to the Middle East.
0:42:15 > 0:42:17But when violence flared,
0:42:17 > 0:42:21Sharon favoured the iron fist -
0:42:21 > 0:42:23particularly in the occupied territories.
0:42:23 > 0:42:26EXPLOSION AND SIRENS
0:42:26 > 0:42:30Palestinian militants played brutally into his hands.
0:42:30 > 0:42:34A suicide bomber at the Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv,
0:42:34 > 0:42:38not long after his election, killed 19 teenagers and injured 120.
0:42:39 > 0:42:43Chairman Arafat is an enemy...
0:42:45 > 0:42:50..because he decided about strategy of terror
0:42:50 > 0:42:52and formed the coalition of terror.
0:42:54 > 0:42:56Sharon's election year ended
0:42:56 > 0:42:59with tanks moving in on Arafat's headquarters in Ramala.
0:42:59 > 0:43:01Ceasefires had come and gone.
0:43:01 > 0:43:04The Israeli prime minister unleashed waves of assaults
0:43:04 > 0:43:11against the Palestinian leader, besieged in his offices amid the ruins.
0:43:11 > 0:43:18I am appealing to the whole international world...
0:43:18 > 0:43:21to stop this aggression.
0:43:21 > 0:43:27He tried to exclude Arafat from the political arena,
0:43:27 > 0:43:29he described him as irrelevant.
0:43:29 > 0:43:32We saw how he surrounded him physically.
0:43:32 > 0:43:37We saw how he blew up the headquarters,
0:43:37 > 0:43:39we saw the relentless bombing and shelling.
0:43:39 > 0:43:42There was a deep visceral loathing of Arafat,
0:43:42 > 0:43:46which went far beyond the rational.
0:43:46 > 0:43:49I remember the chief of Israeli Military Intelligence
0:43:49 > 0:43:54raising his eyebrows when Sharon was going on about Arafat.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57Even his courtiers found sometimes
0:43:57 > 0:44:03that Sharon's obsession with Arafat to be beyond what was justified.
0:44:03 > 0:44:08His actions not only ended that political era in Palestinian life,
0:44:08 > 0:44:14but ended also the chances of peace for a long time.
0:44:14 > 0:44:17SIREN WAILS
0:44:17 > 0:44:21'I remember the day there was the terror attack in the Pat Junction in Jerusalem.
0:44:21 > 0:44:24'I spoke with the Prime Minister at 7.15 when it happened.'
0:44:24 > 0:44:27He said, "I'm going there." It took me three seconds to understand
0:44:27 > 0:44:30there was no way to convince him not to go.
0:44:30 > 0:44:32I went there with him. We walked out of the car
0:44:32 > 0:44:35a metre and a half from a bus that had exploded.
0:44:35 > 0:44:42On the bus, there were two dead girls - decapitated, naked because the fire burned their clothes.
0:44:42 > 0:44:47And then we were walking and passing the 24 body bags that were lying on the ground
0:44:47 > 0:44:50and this was his responsibility.
0:44:50 > 0:44:54He was the Prime Minister of those people.
0:44:54 > 0:44:57It was his responsibility what happened.
0:44:57 > 0:45:01It was his responsibility to make sure it never happens again.
0:45:01 > 0:45:04It happened time and time and time again.
0:45:05 > 0:45:07I saw his frustration
0:45:07 > 0:45:10at his inability to control Palestinian violence.
0:45:10 > 0:45:16His resort to the reaction, really, he'd had in the 1950s -
0:45:16 > 0:45:19of believing that the only way to deal with Palestinian violence
0:45:19 > 0:45:23was to kill ten Arabs for every Jew who was killed.
0:45:23 > 0:45:27I remember being with him once when news of an attack came in -
0:45:27 > 0:45:31outside the settlement of Emmanuel on the Northern West Bank -
0:45:31 > 0:45:35and seeing him react with cold, irrational fury,
0:45:35 > 0:45:39picking up the phone to his Defence Minister, Fuad Bin Eliezer,
0:45:39 > 0:45:44and ordering retaliation without any real thought of the consequences.
0:45:44 > 0:45:47Just this basic primeval instinct
0:45:47 > 0:45:51that violence has to be reacted to with violence...
0:45:51 > 0:45:55and several eyes for every Jewish eye that had been taken.
0:45:55 > 0:45:58WOMAN WAILS
0:46:01 > 0:46:06Sharon ordered an Israeli assault on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank in April, 2002 -
0:46:06 > 0:46:11a response to suicide bombings.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14More than 50 Palestinians were killed,
0:46:14 > 0:46:16almost half of them civilians,
0:46:16 > 0:46:19and more than 20 Israeli troops.
0:46:19 > 0:46:21He thought that terrorists should be fought
0:46:21 > 0:46:26as long as there's no-one from the Palestinian Authority who is doing what he should do
0:46:26 > 0:46:30and fight terrorists. Terrorists should be fought by Israel
0:46:30 > 0:46:32and at the same time, on a parallel route,
0:46:32 > 0:46:35peace process or any accord should be moved forward.
0:46:35 > 0:46:37And that's what he did.
0:46:38 > 0:46:39Then came the wall,
0:46:39 > 0:46:44a security barrier separating Israelis from the West Bank.
0:46:44 > 0:46:49Sharon was slow to support the barrier, concerned it would be seen
0:46:49 > 0:46:52as a ruse to expropriate more Palestinian land.
0:46:54 > 0:46:57He was afraid that the barrier would be a political barrier.
0:46:57 > 0:47:04I told him it should be a security barrier, but it should be built.
0:47:04 > 0:47:09It took a few months until he was convinced.
0:47:09 > 0:47:14Then, he behaved as if it's his own idea.
0:47:14 > 0:47:19And that was Ariel Sharon. When he understood professionally
0:47:19 > 0:47:23that we need a barrier, he was behind it,
0:47:23 > 0:47:27and when he was behind something it was a bulldozer.
0:47:27 > 0:47:30With Sharon as boss,
0:47:30 > 0:47:34the levels of violence on both sides remained high.
0:47:34 > 0:47:39Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, wheelchair bound, quadriplegic and half blind,
0:47:39 > 0:47:43was victim of one of Sharon's so-called targeted killings.
0:47:43 > 0:47:45WAILING AND GUNFIRE
0:47:45 > 0:47:48Yassin was spiritual leader of the militant group Hamas,
0:47:48 > 0:47:51which promoted suicide bombings.
0:47:51 > 0:47:53A martyr was created.
0:47:54 > 0:47:59Targeted killings, assassinations were the most controversial
0:47:59 > 0:48:02part of Israel's response to Palestinian terrorism.
0:48:02 > 0:48:07But after 9/11 the United States engaged in targeted assassinations.
0:48:07 > 0:48:11And so, therefore, there was no ability any more,
0:48:11 > 0:48:14no willingness, to criticise Israel.
0:48:14 > 0:48:20President Bush was Sharon's crucial ally. They had a strong rapport
0:48:20 > 0:48:22and Bush backed him to the hilt.
0:48:22 > 0:48:27'George Bush, evidently, was the person who'd come closest'
0:48:27 > 0:48:30to Sharon's worldview, his ideological outlook,
0:48:30 > 0:48:34but most importantly, the person who gave to Sharon
0:48:34 > 0:48:37what other Prime Ministers of Israel had not been able to get -
0:48:37 > 0:48:43American acceptance that Israel should keep settlements it had taken by force
0:48:43 > 0:48:47in the occupied territories and to annex them to Israel
0:48:47 > 0:48:50before the final peace deal with the Palestinians was done.
0:48:50 > 0:48:54Sharon was extremely skilful
0:48:54 > 0:48:58in feeding Bush's White House the information
0:48:58 > 0:49:02he thought they needed - the so-called intelligence
0:49:02 > 0:49:05he thought they needed to get them to take a particular view
0:49:05 > 0:49:08on a particular issue at a particular time.
0:49:08 > 0:49:11And his two coups were really
0:49:11 > 0:49:17persuading Bush that Arafat was a liar, something we all knew,
0:49:17 > 0:49:20and that Bush thereafter refused to deal with Arafat.
0:49:20 > 0:49:24And then persuading Bush to endorse,
0:49:24 > 0:49:29more or less, Sharon's vision of withdrawal from Gaza.
0:49:33 > 0:49:38The Gaza Strip was one of the most densely populated places in the world,
0:49:38 > 0:49:41packed with poverty-stricken Palestinians.
0:49:46 > 0:49:50Sharon, who'd encouraged Jewish settlers to move to Gaza,
0:49:50 > 0:49:53now said they had no future there.
0:49:53 > 0:49:55Sharon made it clear...
0:49:55 > 0:49:59over and over again that the Gaza disengagement
0:49:59 > 0:50:04was consistent with the road map and would lead to the road map.
0:50:04 > 0:50:09And he much preferred a unilateral disengagement from Gaza,
0:50:09 > 0:50:12which would enable him, he thought,
0:50:12 > 0:50:17to define the territory that Israel could keep on the West Bank.
0:50:17 > 0:50:23He didn't want a Palestinian partner for this process
0:50:23 > 0:50:28because it meant he would have to give up more than he was prepared to agree to on the West Bank.
0:50:31 > 0:50:33For Sharon, Yasser Arafat remained a problem.
0:50:33 > 0:50:37Until, that is, he went abroad for hospital treatment and died.
0:50:37 > 0:50:39His departure was presented
0:50:39 > 0:50:42as clearing the way for political discussion.
0:50:42 > 0:50:45Sharon pressed on with his plan for Gaza.
0:50:47 > 0:50:49In all my years of service,
0:50:49 > 0:50:53I have made hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions,
0:50:53 > 0:50:56many in regard to life and death.
0:50:56 > 0:51:02But the decision about the disengagement plan
0:51:02 > 0:51:05is the most difficult of all.
0:51:05 > 0:51:08THEY JEER
0:51:08 > 0:51:11Sharon's Gaza policy got him into serious hot water -
0:51:11 > 0:51:14not just with the settlers, but with his own party.
0:51:14 > 0:51:17They booed him. Many hated the very notion
0:51:17 > 0:51:20of even a truncated Palestinian State.
0:51:20 > 0:51:22He was always against his party.
0:51:22 > 0:51:26When his party was not willing to hear about a Palestinian State,
0:51:26 > 0:51:28he came during pre-elections and said,
0:51:28 > 0:51:32"This is a fact, there will be a Palestinian State next to Israel."
0:51:32 > 0:51:35And he was criticised by key members in his party.
0:51:35 > 0:51:39When he said that, "Well, you know, we believed in Greater Israel,
0:51:39 > 0:51:43"but this is something that looking towards the future is not possible
0:51:43 > 0:51:48"and I'm redeploying unilaterally from the Gaza Strip," he lost the referendum.
0:51:48 > 0:51:51The party was something that he always knew to put aside.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55It was Israel and the party, and Israel was more important.
0:51:55 > 0:51:57THEY SHOUT
0:51:57 > 0:52:00For Israel settlers, the Gaza withdrawal was a nightmare -
0:52:00 > 0:52:04for them it was part of the land of Israel.
0:52:04 > 0:52:06SHOUTING
0:52:06 > 0:52:08The fallout was largely peaceful,
0:52:08 > 0:52:11though some settlers had to be physically removed.
0:52:11 > 0:52:15As for Sharon's motives - the views differed.
0:52:15 > 0:52:20The debate, I feel, about whether Sharon had changed his spots,
0:52:20 > 0:52:26had changed hearts finally and that he was giving up Gaza or other land
0:52:26 > 0:52:32because he'd fundamentally changed heart about making peace with the Arabs and the Palestinians,
0:52:32 > 0:52:37I think is nonsense. He didn't believe that permanent peace with the Palestinians was possible
0:52:37 > 0:52:40or would not be possible for 40 or 50 years to come.
0:52:40 > 0:52:46And the only issue was whether he was going to be confronted with enough American and international pressure
0:52:46 > 0:52:50to make the deal to achieve real peace with the Palestinians or not.
0:52:50 > 0:52:53The withdrawal from Gaza was very blunt.
0:52:53 > 0:52:57Rather than a context of an agreement with the Palestinians,
0:52:57 > 0:53:00he gave it for free to Hamas.
0:53:00 > 0:53:04Because he did not believe there was any difference between Hamas
0:53:04 > 0:53:08and the people. They were all Arabs.
0:53:09 > 0:53:14As for Likud, his rebellious party, Sharon simply dumped it,
0:53:14 > 0:53:16leaving it shrunken and enfeebled.
0:53:41 > 0:53:47Sharon founded a new party - Kadima - taking many Likud Ministers with him.
0:53:47 > 0:53:51Kadima was a hot favourite for the next election.
0:53:51 > 0:53:57But at the beginning of 2006, Sharon again shocked the world.
0:53:57 > 0:54:00He suffered a major stroke.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03He would remain in a coma till his death.
0:54:05 > 0:54:08Ehud Olmert, his Kadima brother-in-arms
0:54:08 > 0:54:11and a former mayor of Jerusalem, took over.
0:54:14 > 0:54:16Sharon's image dominated the election,
0:54:16 > 0:54:19underwriting Olmert's campaign.
0:54:20 > 0:54:21Kadima won.
0:54:21 > 0:54:22Likud collapsed.
0:54:22 > 0:54:27The old general, even in his absence, had won another victory.
0:54:27 > 0:54:30But, as Sharon lay incapacitated in hospital,
0:54:30 > 0:54:34his vision of a path to peace began to fall apart.
0:54:38 > 0:54:41Israel was drawn into a brutal new war in Lebanon.
0:54:41 > 0:54:46Over a thousand Lebanese and 165 Israelis were killed.
0:54:50 > 0:54:54In Gaza, the Palestinian militant group Hamas had taken power
0:54:54 > 0:54:57and Israel had blockaded the Strip.
0:54:59 > 0:55:01Volleys of rockets were repeatedly fired
0:55:01 > 0:55:04on Israeli towns close to the border.
0:55:09 > 0:55:13Israel hit back, pounding Gaza for three weeks.
0:55:13 > 0:55:17Over a thousand Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.
0:55:20 > 0:55:25Iran's disengagement policy had not delivered the security it promised.
0:55:25 > 0:55:28Regardless of what he did politically,
0:55:28 > 0:55:35his legacy is one that made violence
0:55:35 > 0:55:39and bloody resolution of issues
0:55:39 > 0:55:45the modus operandi in Palestine, against the Palestinians.
0:55:45 > 0:55:50Now, Sharon's new party, Kadima, has collapsed,
0:55:50 > 0:55:55replaced in power by a coalition run by his old party, Likud.
0:55:55 > 0:55:57Prime Minister Netanyahu has shown
0:55:57 > 0:56:00little interest in talking to the Palestinians.
0:56:00 > 0:56:04The settlements have continued to expand.
0:56:04 > 0:56:08The Americans are trying to revitalise talks,
0:56:08 > 0:56:12but peace in the Middle East seems as elusive as ever.
0:56:12 > 0:56:16And for many, this is Sharon's legacy.
0:56:18 > 0:56:20He wasted our time.
0:56:20 > 0:56:24We could have done so much about occupation,
0:56:24 > 0:56:26about settlements, about peace.
0:56:26 > 0:56:28He was an obstacle to these things
0:56:28 > 0:56:32and it's sad, because he had the capacity to lead,
0:56:32 > 0:56:35and he led the country in the wrong direction.
0:56:36 > 0:56:38He did not believe in diplomacy.
0:56:39 > 0:56:41He really believed
0:56:41 > 0:56:47that Israel could live on an island,
0:56:47 > 0:56:50detached from the world, detached from the Middle East.
0:56:51 > 0:56:55He was centre stage in all the main events of Israel's bloody story,
0:56:55 > 0:56:59and his place in its history is secure.
0:56:59 > 0:57:02If he would have stopped one day to ask himself
0:57:02 > 0:57:06"What do you want history to say about you?",
0:57:06 > 0:57:10I think, if I can imagine, he would have said
0:57:10 > 0:57:14"A strong leader, but a leader for peace."
0:57:14 > 0:57:16The fact of the matter is,
0:57:16 > 0:57:18he broke the mould.
0:57:18 > 0:57:24No other prime minister was prepared to take on the settler movement.
0:57:26 > 0:57:31Yitzhak Rabin gave up his life because he antagonised the settlers.
0:57:32 > 0:57:35And Sharon not only had the courage,
0:57:35 > 0:57:39but he had the political capability to do that.
0:57:39 > 0:57:43And I think in many ways, in terms of his contribution to peace,
0:57:43 > 0:57:45that will be his lasting legacy,
0:57:45 > 0:57:49that he made it legitimate
0:57:49 > 0:57:53in Israeli political life
0:57:53 > 0:57:56for settlements to be evacuated.
0:57:56 > 0:57:59Loved and loathed in equal measure,
0:57:59 > 0:58:03Sharon was a formidable man who lived by the sword.
0:58:04 > 0:58:08For many in Israel, he is a hero beyond criticism.
0:58:10 > 0:58:12For others, his legacy will forever be tainted
0:58:12 > 0:58:15by the destruction he left in his wake.