Ariel Sharon Quotes

Ariel Sharon was an Israeli general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006. Sharon was incapacitated by a stroke in January 2006.

Sharon was a commander in the Israeli Army from its creation in 1948. As a soldier and then an officer, he participated prominently in the 1948 War of Independence, becoming a platoon commander in the Alexandroni Brigade and taking part in many battles, including Operation Bin Nun Alef. He was an instrumental figure in the creation of Unit 101 and the reprisal operations, as well as in the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Six-Day War of 1967, the War of Attrition, and the Yom-Kippur War of 1973. As Minister of Defense, he directed the 1982 Lebanon War. He was criticized for the Sabra and Shatila massacre, which occurred during the war.

Sharon was considered the greatest field commander in Israel's history, and one of the country's greatest military strategists and tacticians. Upon retirement from the military, Sharon entered politics, joining the Likud, and served in a number of ministerial posts in Likud-led governments in 1977–92 and 1996–99. He became the leader of the Likud in 2000, and served as Israel's prime minister from 2001 to 2006.

From the 1970s through to the 1990s, Sharon championed construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, as Prime Minister, in 2004–05 Sharon orchestrated Israel's unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Facing stiff opposition to this policy within the Likud, in November 2005 he left Likud to form a new party, Kadima. He had been expected to win the next election and was widely interpreted as planning on "clearing Israel out of most of the West Bank", in a series of unilateral withdrawals. After suffering a stroke on January 4, 2006, Sharon remained in a permanent vegetative state until his death in January 2014.

✵ 26. February 1928 – 11. January 2014
Ariel Sharon photo
Ariel Sharon: 15   quotes 0   likes

Famous Ariel Sharon Quotes

“If we [are to] reach a situation of true peace, real peace, peace for generations, we will have to make painful concessions. Not in exchange for promises, but rather in exchange for peace.”

2000s
Source: "Report: Sharon willing to make 'painful concessions," at cnn.com, April 2003 ( online) http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/13/sharon.settlements/

Ariel Sharon Quotes about people

“Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.”

2000s
Source: "Clashes mar Mid-East inquiry," at news.bbc.co.uk, March 25, 2001 ( online) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1241371.stm

Ariel Sharon Quotes

“We can also reassure our Palestinian partners that we understand the importance of territorial contiguity in the West Bank for a viable Palestinian state.”

Sharon pledges to 'immediately' remove unauthorized outposts http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/04/summit.sharon/index.html, CNN, 4 June 2003.
2000s

“You cannot like the word, but what is happening is an occupation -- to hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation. I believe that is a terrible thing for Israel and for the Palestinians.”

Sharon pledges to 'immediately' remove unauthorized outposts http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/05/26/mideast/, CNN, 26 May 2003.
2000s

“[Iran, Libya and Syria] are irresponsible states, which must be disarmed of weapons [of] mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve.”

haaretzdaily.com, February 17, 2003 Haaretz http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=263941
2000s

“Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches.”

Quoted in Friedman, Robert I., Zealots for Zion: Inside Israel's West Bank Settlement Movement (New York, New York: Random House, 1992), 132-52.
1990s

“Everybody has to move; run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements, because everything we take now will stay ours. Everything we don't grab will go to them.”

Stated in 1998, New York Times ( online https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/01/negotiating-with-the-israeli-settlers/no-chance-of-peace-with-settlements-around).
1990s

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