Word: gaza
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...what made him one of the greatest?some peers say the greatest?military commander in Israeli history. It's what enabled him, from a variety of Cabinet posts, to construct settlements in the face of international opprobrium. But it's also what allowed him not only to evacuate Gaza but, 23 years earlier, to tear down settlements in Egypt's Sinai peninsula and use water cannons to force out the Israelis there, putting Israel in compliance with Israel's 1979 peace treaty with Egypt...
...Israeli woman and her two toddlers by Palestinian infiltrators from the West Bank village of Qibya. Sharon's forces destroyed a few dozen buildings in Qibya, killing 69 villagers and earning Israel a censure at the U.N. Charged with cleaning Palestinian fighters out of the now Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip after the '67 war, he did so with ruthless efficiency. It was Sharon who pushed Israeli Prime Minister Begin to bomb Iraq's nuclear facilities in 1981, an operation applauded today but widely condemned then...
After years of political probation following the Lebanon war, it was, ironically, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who gave Sharon his final big break. At peace talks in the summer of 2000, Labor Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the bulk of the West Bank, including some part of East Jerusalem. Arafat refused the deal. Presumably to protest Barak's offer to divide Jerusalem, Sharon, accompanied by dozens of Israeli police, took the unusual step of visiting what Jews call the Temple Mount, the plateau that today hosts al-Aqsa Mosque...
...DANIEL KURTZER Former U.S. ambassador to Israel: Ariel Sharon was writing the last and most important chapter of his legacy when he was struck down. My conversations with Sharon last September, as I departed my ambassadorial post in Israel, convinced me that the historic disengagement from Gaza was not his last peace step. I believe he was intent on redefining Israel's eastern border, which would require dismantling many additional settlements in the West Bank. Immediate peace moves by Israel are highly unlikely. The new Israeli leadership will need time to consolidate its power at home and build up credibility...
...demographic time bomb and that to preserve Israel as Jewish and democratic, Israel could not remain in control of all the West Bank and Gaza. So he did what was previously unthinkable: he withdrew unilaterally from Gaza and dismantled the settlements there. Only someone who had built the settlements and also been tough on terror and never willing to "compromise on Israeli security" could have taken on the settler constituency in Israel. His main legacy will be that Israel will make its future choices based not on the biblical vision of the land of Israel but on the practical needs...