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4 - Ariel Sharon: From Warfare to Withdrawal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

Yael S. Aronoff
Yael S. Aronoff
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Summary

You mean that we should hand our security over to somebody other than Jews? Never! I emphasize, never! I say it again, never!

– Ariel Sharon, 1989

We would like you to govern yourselves in your own country. A democratic Palestinian state with territorial contiguity in Judea and Samaria.

– Ariel Sharon, 2003

In January 2006, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was struck down by a stroke, which left him in a coma until his death eight years later. His fall left a question that will forever haunt political scientists and those interested in Middle East peace. Sharon started out as a hawk who opposed the creation of a Palestinian state, had a high threat perception, a low sense of urgency to resolve the dispute, a high predilection to use force, and believed that the probability of peace was low. He was afraid that accommodations would be interpreted as weakness, and viewed the opponent as monolithic, and as having unlimited aims. But by the time he was struck down, Sharon had overseen the withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip, and was setting the stage for the potential unilateral withdrawal of Israeli troops from much of the West Bank. Did Sharon dramatically change his position about Israel’s occupation of the territories, or did he remain so hard-line that he would need to be replaced in order to reach an agreement? Would he have followed through with his plan and withdrawn from most of the West Bank – thereby marking a dramatic shift in policy by a hard-liner toward an adversary that some commentators were already comparing to Richard Nixon’s trip to China? Or was Sharon’s Gaza withdrawal a cynical ploy to hang on to the West Bank by a hard-liner who had not undergone any real change? What explains the decision of one of the architects and strongest supporters of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements, and pursue a new strategy of unilateral disengagement?

Type
Chapter
Information
The Political Psychology of Israeli Prime Ministers
When Hard-Liners Opt for Peace
 , pp. 78 - 99
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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