Ariel Sharon? (Hebrew: אֲרִיאֵל שָׁרוֹן, also known by his
diminutive Arik אָרִיק) (born Ariel Scheinermann on February 27, 1928) is a former Israeli
Prime Minister and military leader whose political career was ended by a
massive stroke he suffered in early 2006.
Sharon served as Prime Minister from March 2001 until April 2006, though the powers of his office were exercised by acting
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert following Sharon's stroke
on January 4, 2006. At that time, Sharon fell into a
coma; as of December 2007, he is in a persistent
vegetative state.
During his lengthy career, Sharon was a highly controversial figure among many factions, both inside and outside Israel. Some
of his critics have sought to prosecute him as a war criminal for alleged crimes related to
the Sabra and Shatila massacre during the 1982 Lebanon War. The Kahan Commission held him personally
responsible for the massacre. Sharon lost his post as Defense Minister as a result, but
remained in the cabinet as minister without portfolio. Sharon continued as a leading figure in the Likud
Party, and held various senior cabinet and party posts, ultimately becoming party leader
in 1999 and Prime Minister in 2001.
During his tenure as Prime Minister, Sharon's policies caused a rift within the Likud Party,
and he ultimately left Likud to form a new party called Kadima. He became the first
Prime Minister of Israel who did not belong to either Labor or Likud — the two parties that have traditionally dominated Israeli politics. The new party
created by Sharon, with Olmert having stepped in as its leader, won the most Knesset seats in
the 2006 elections, and is now the senior coalition partner in the Israeli government.
Early life
Ariel Sharon was born in Kfar Malal, Palestine, to
Litvaks Shmuel Sheinerman, of Brest-Litovsk (now Brest,
Belarus) and Dvora (formerly Vera), of Mogilev. His father was studying agronomy at the university of Tbilisi, Georgia (Georgian SSR) and his mother had just started her fourth year of medical studies, when the couple married.
They immigrated to the British Mandate
Palestine from Russia, fleeing the Red Army.
Sharon's father spoke Yiddish and his mother spoke Russian; their son learned to speak Russian as a young boy.
The family arrived in the Second Aliyah and settled in a socialist, secular community where, despite being Mapai supporters, they were known to be contrarians against the prevailing community consensus:
- The Scheinermans' eventual ostracism... followed the 1933 Arlozorov murder when
Dvora and Shmuel refused to endorse the Labor movement's anti-Revisionist calumny and participate in Bolshevi(k)-style public revilement rallies, then the order of the day. Retribution was quick to come. They
were expelled from the local health-fund clinic and village synagogue. The cooperative's truck
wouldn't make deliveries to their farm nor collect produce.[1]
Four years after their arrival at Kfar Malal, the Sheinermans had a daughter, Yehudit
(Dita), and two years after, they had a son, Ariel.
At age 10, Sharon entered the youth movement Zionist, Hassadeh (“the Field”).
In 1942 at the age of 14, Sharon joined the Gadna, a paramilitary youth battalion, and later the Haganah, the underground paramilitary force and the Jewish military
precursor to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). At the creation of Israel (and
Haganah's transformation into the Israel Defense Forces), Sharon became a platoon commander in the Alexandroni Brigade. He was severely
wounded in the groin by the Jordanian Arab Legion in the
Second Battle of Latrun, an unsuccessful attempt to relieve the besieged Jewish community of Jerusalem. His
injuries eventually healed.
In September 1949, Sharon was promoted to company commander (of the Golani
Brigade's reconnaissance unit) and in 1950 to intelligence officer for Central Command. He
then took leave to begin studies in history and Middle Eastern culture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A year and a half later, he was asked to return to active
service in the rank of major and as the leader of the new Unit
101, Israel's first special forces unit.
Unit 101 undertook a series of military raids against Palestinians and neighboring
Arab states that helped bolster Israeli morale and fortify its deterrent image. The unit was known for targeting civilians as well as Arab soldiers, notably in the
widely condemned Qibya operation in the fall of 1953, in which 69 Palestinian civilians,
some of them children, were killed by Sharon's troops in a reprisal attack on their West Bank
village. In the documentary Israel and the Arabs: 50 Year War, Sharon recalls
what happened after the raid, which was heavily condemned by many Western nations, including the U.S.:
- I was summoned to see Ben-Gurion. It was the first time I met him, and right
from the start Ben-Gurion said to me: "Let me first tell you one thing: it doesn't matter what the world says about Israel, it
doesn't matter what they say about us anywhere else. The only thing that matters is that we can exist here on the land of our
forefathers. And unless we show the Arabs that there is a high price to pay for murdering Jews, we
won't survive."
Shortly afterwards, just a few months after its founding, Unit 101 was merged into the 202nd Paratroopers Brigade (Sharon eventually became the latter's commander), which continued to
attack military and civilian targets, culminating with the attack on the Qalqilyah police
station in the autumn of 1956.
In 1952-53, Sharon attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, taking
History and Oriental studies.
Sharon has been widowed twice. Shortly after becoming a military instructor, he
married his first wife, Margalit, with whom he had a son, Gur. Margalit died in a
car accident in May 1962. Their son, Gur, died in October 1967 after a friend shot him
while they were playing with a rifle.[2][3][4] After Margalit's death, Sharon married her younger sister, Lily. They had two sons, Omri and Gil'ad. Lily Sharon died of cancer in 2000.
From 1958 to 1962, Sharon served as commander of an infantry brigade and studied law at Tel Aviv University.
Mitla incident
In the 1956 Suez War (the British "Operation
Musketeer"), Sharon commanded the 202nd Brigade, and was responsible for taking ground
east of the Sinai's Mitla Pass and eventually taking
the pass itself. Having successfully carried out the first part of his mission (joining a battalion parachuted near Mitla with
the rest of the brigade moving on ground), Sharon's unit was deployed near the pass. Neither reconnaissance aircraft nor scouts reported enemy forces
inside the Mitla Pass. Sharon, whose forces were initially heading east, away from the pass, reported to his superiors that he
was increasingly concerned with the possibility of an enemy thrust through the pass, which could attack his brigade from the
flank or the rear.
Sharon asked for permission to attack the pass several times, but his requests were denied (although he was allowed to check
its status so that if the pass was empty, he could receive permission to take it later). Sharon sent a small scout force, which
was met with heavy fire and became bogged down due to vehicle malfunction in
the middle of the pass. Sharon ordered the rest of his troops to attack in order to aid their comrades. In the ensuing successful
battle to capture the pass, 38 Israeli soldiers were killed.
Sharon was not only criticized by his superiors, he was damaged by revelations several years later by several former
subordinates (one of IDF's first major revelations to the press), who claimed that
Sharon tried to provoke the Egyptians and sent out the scouts in bad faith, ensuring that a battle
would ensue. Deliberate or not, the attack was considered strategically reckless because the Egyptian forces were expected to
withdraw from the pass within a day or two.
Six-Day War and Yom Kippur War
-
The Mitla incident hindered Sharon's military career for several years. In the meantime, he occupied the position of an
infantry brigade commander and received a law degree from Tel Aviv University. When Yitzhak Rabin (who within a few years became associated with the Labor
Party) became Chief of Staff in 1964, however, Sharon began again to rise
rapidly in the ranks, occupying the positions of Infantry School Commander and Head of Army Training Branch, eventually achieving
the rank of Major General (Aluf). In the 1967
Six-Day War, Sharon commanded the most powerful armored division on the Sinai front which made a breakthrough in the Kusseima-Abu-Ageila fortified area (see Battle of Abu-Ageila). In 1969, he was appointed the Head of IDF's Southern
Command. He had no further promotions before retiring in August 1973. Soon after, he joined the Likud ("Unity") political party.[5]
At the start of the Yom Kippur War on October 6,
1973, Sharon was called back to duty and assigned to command a reserve armored division. His forces did not engage the Egyptian Army
immediately, but it was Sharon who helped locate a breach between the Egyptian forces, which he then exploited by capturing a
bridgehead on October 16 and throwing a bridge across the Suez
Canal the following day. He violated orders from the head of Southern Command by exploiting this success to cut the
supply lines of the Egyptian Third Army, located to the south of the
canal crossing, isolating it from other Egyptian units.
The divisions of Sharon and Abraham Adan (Bren) passed over this bridge into
Africa advancing to within 101 kilometers of Cairo. They wreaked havoc on the supply lines of the Third Army stretching to the south of them, cutting off and
encircling the Third Army, but could not force its surrender before the ceasefire*. Tensions between the two generals followed his decision, but a military tribunal later found his action was militarily effective. This move was regarded by many
Israelis as the turning point of the war in the Sinai front. Thus, Sharon is widely viewed as a war hero who saved Israel from
defeat in Sinai. A photo of Sharon wearing a head bandage on the Suez Canal became a famous symbol of Israeli military
prowess.
Sharon's aggressive political positions were controversial and he was relieved of duty in February 1974.
Beginnings of political career
In the 1940s and 1950s, Sharon seemed to be personally devoted to the ideals of Mapai (Workers
Party of the Land of Israel), the predecessor of the modern Labor Party. However,
after retiring from military service, Sharon was instrumental in establishing the Likud in July 1973. The Likud comprised
Herut (Freedom), the Liberal Party and independent
elements. Sharon became chairman of the campaign staff for the elections which were scheduled for November 1973. Two and a half
weeks after the start of the election campaign, the Yom Kippur War erupted and Sharon was
called back to reserve service (see above). In December 1973, Sharon was elected to the Knesset, but a year later he resigned.
From June 1975 to March 1976, Sharon was a special aide to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He planned his return to politics for
the 1977 elections, first he tried to return to the Likud and replace Menachem Begin at
the head of the party. He suggested to Simkha Erlikh, who headed the Liberal Party bloc in the
Likud, that he was more fitting than Begin to win an election victory; he was rejected, however. He then tried to join the
Labor Party and the centrist Democratic Movement for Change, but was rejected in those parties too. Only then did he
form his own list, Shlomtzion, which won only two Knesset seats in the
subsequent elections. Immediately after the elections he merged Shlomtzion with the Likud and became Minister of Agriculture.
When Sharon joined Begin's government he had relatively little political experience. During this period, Sharon supported the
Gush Emunim settlements movement and was viewed as the patron of the settlers' movement. He
used his position to encourage the establishment of a network of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories to prevent the
possibility of Palestinian Arabs' return of these territories. Sharon doubled the
number of Jewish settlements on the West Bank and Gaza
Strip during his tenure.
On his settlement policy, Sharon said while addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party:
"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Judean) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything
we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them." (Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.)
After the 1981 elections, Begin rewarded Sharon for his important contribution to Likud's narrow win, by appointing him
Minister of Defense.
Sabra and Shatila massacre
-
During the 1982 Lebanon War, while Sharon was Defense minister, the Sabra and Shatila massacre
took place, in which between 800 and 3,500 Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps were
killed by the Phalanges—Lebanese Maronite Christian militias. The Security Chief of the
Phalange militia, a Lebanese himself, Elie
Hobeika, was the ground commander of the militiamen who entered the Palestinian camps and killed the Palestinians. The
Phalange had been sent into the camps to clear out PLO fighters, and
Israeli forces had been sent to the camps at Sharon's command to provide them with logistical
support and to guard camp exits. The incident led some of Sharon's critics to refer to him as "the Butcher of Beirut".[6]
An Associated Press report on September 15,
1982 stated:
- Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, in a statement, tied the killing [of the Phalangist leader Gemayel] to the PLO, saying: "It
symbolises the terrorist murderousness of the PLO terrorist organisations and their supporters." Habib Chartouni, a Lebanese
Christian from the Syrian Socialist National Party confessed
to the murder of Gemayel, and no Palestinians were involved. Sharon had used this to instigate the entrance of the Lebanese
militias into the camps.
The Kahan Commission found the Israeli
Defence Forces indirectly responsible for the massacre and charged Sharon with "personal responsibility." It recommended
in early 1983 the removal of Sharon from his post as Defense minister. In their recommendations and closing remarks, the
commission stated:
- We have found, as has been detailed in this report, that the Minister of Defense [Ariel Sharon] bears personal
responsibility. In our opinion, it is fitting that the Minister of Defense draw the appropriate personal conclusions arising out
of the defects revealed with regard to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office - and if necessary, that the
Prime Minister consider whether he should exercise his authority under Section
21-A(a) of the Basic Law: the Government, according to which "the Prime Minister may, after informing the Cabinet of his
intention to do so, remove a minister from office."[7]
Sharon initially refused to resign as Defense Minister, and Prime Minister
Menachem Begin initially refused to fire him. After a grenade was tossed into a
dispersing crowd of an Israeli Peace Now march, killing Emil
Grunzweig and injuring 10 others, a compromise was reached: Sharon agreed to forfeit the post of defense minister but
stayed in the cabinet as minister without portfolio.[8] Ariel
Sharon's removal as Defense Minister is listed as one of the important events of the Tenth
Knesset.
In its February 21, 1983 issue, Time published a story implying Sharon was directly responsible for the massacres. Sharon
sued Time for libel in American and Israeli
courts. Although the jury concluded that the Time story included false allegations, they
found that Time had not acted with "actual malice" and did not award any damages.[9]
On June 18, 2001 relatives of the victims of the Sabra massacre
began proceedings in Belgium to have Sharon indicted on war
crimes charges.[10] In June 2002, a Brussels Appeals Court rejected the lawsuit because the law was subsequently changed under heavy U.S. pressure
to disallow such lawsuits unless a Belgian citizen is involved.[11]
Political downturn and recovery
After being dismissed from the Defense Minister post because the Kahan Commission found him "personally responsible" for his
"disregard of the danger of a massacre," Sharon remained in successive governments as a Minister without Portfolio (1983—1984), Minister for Trade and Industry (1984—1990), and
Minister for Housing Construction (1990—1992). In the Knesset, he was member of the Foreign Affairs and Defence committee from
(1990-1992) and Chairman of the committee overseeing Jewish immigration from the
USSR. During this period he was a rival to then prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, but failed in various bids to replace him as chairman of Likud. Their rivalry reached a
head on the "Night of Microphones" in February 1990, when Sharon snapped the microphone from Shamir, who was addressing the Likud
central committee, and famously exclaimed: "Who's for wiping out terrorism?". The incident was
widely viewed as an apparent coup attempt against Shamir's leadership of the party.
In Benjamin Netanyahu's 1996–1999 government, Sharon was Minister of National
Infrastructure (1996—1998), and Foreign Minister (1998—1999). Upon the election of the Barak
Labor government, Sharon became leader of the Likud party.
Prime Minister
After the collapse of Barak's government, Sharon was elected Prime Minister in February 2001. Sharon was allegedly involved in
the Greek island affair related to attempts by David
Appel to purchase an island near the coast of Athens for the purpose of building a
multimillion-dollar resort complex. The charge against Sharon was dropped in 2004.
On September 28, 2000, Sharon and an escort of over 1,000
Israeli police officers visited the Temple Mount complex, site of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque. This is the third holiest
site in Islam. Sharon declared that the complex would remain under perpetual Israeli control.
Palestinian commentators accused Sharon of purposely inflaming emotions with the event to provoke a violent response and obstruct
success of delicate ongoing peace talks. On the following day, a large number of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators and a large
Israeli police contingent confronted each other at the site. According to the U.S. State Department, “Palestinians held large demonstrations and threw stones at
police in the vicinity of the Western Wall. Police used rubber-coated metal bullets and live ammunition to disperse the
demonstrators, killing 4 persons and injuring about 200.” According to the GOI, 14 policemen were injured.
Sharon's visit, a few months before his election as Prime Minister, came after archeologists claimed that extensive building operations at the site were destroying priceless antiquities.
Sharon's supporters claim that Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian National Authority planned the intifada months prior to Sharon's
visit.[12][13][14] They state that
Palestinian security chief Jabril Rajoub provided assurances that if Sharon did not enter the mosques, no problems would arise.
They also often quote statements by Palestinian Authority officials, particularly Imad Falouji, the P.A. Communications Minister,
who admitted months after Sharon's visit that the violence had been planned in July, far in advance of Sharon's visit, stating
the intifada "was carefully planned since the return of (Palestinian President) Yasser Arafat from Camp David negotiations rejecting the U.S. conditions".[15] According to the Mitchell Report,
- the government of Israel asserted that the immediate catalyst for the violence was the breakdown of the Camp David
negotiations on 25 July 2000 and the “widespread appreciation in
the international community of Palestinian responsibility for the impasse.” In this view, Palestinian violence was planned by the
PA leadership, and was aimed at “provoking and incurring Palestinian casualties as a means of regaining the diplomatic
initiative.”
The Mitchell Report found that
- the Sharon visit did not cause the Al-Aqsa Intifada. But it was poorly timed and the provocative effect should have been
foreseen; indeed, it was foreseen by those who urged that the visit be prohibited. More significant were the events that
followed: The decision of the Israeli police on September 29 to use lethal means against the Palestinian demonstrators.
In addition, the report stated,
- Accordingly, we have no basis on which to conclude that there was a deliberate plan by the PA to initiate a campaign of
violence at the first opportunity; or to conclude that there was a delilberate plan by the GOI to respond with lethal
force.[16]
The Or Commission, an Israeli panel of inquiry appointed to investigate the October 2000 events,
- criticised the Israeli police for being unprepared for the riots and possibly using excessive force to disperse the mobs,
resulting in the deaths of 12 Arab Israeli, one Jewish and one Palestinian citizens.
Palestinians doubt the existence of popular support for Sharon's actions. Polls published in the media, as well as the 140%
call-up of reservists (as opposed to the 60% in regular periods) seem to indicate that the Israeli public is quite supportive of
Sharon's policies. A survey conducted by Tel Aviv University's Jaffe Center in May 2004 found that 80% of Jewish Israelis believe
that the Israel Defense Forces have succeeded in militarily countering the Al-Aqsa Intifada,[17] indicating widespread faith in Sharon's hard-line policy.
President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon meet in the White House on
14 April 2004.
On July 20, 2004, Sharon called on French Jews to emigrate from France to Israel
immediately, in light of an increase in French anti-Semitism (94 anti-Semitic
assaults reported in the first six months of 2004 compared to 47 in 2003). France has the fourth
largest Jewish population (about 600,000 people), after the United States,
Israel, and Russia. Sharon claimed that an "unfettered
anti-Semitism" reigned in France. The French government responded by describing his comments as "unacceptable", as did the French
representative Jewish organization CRIF, which
denied Sharon's claim of intense anti-Semitism in French society. An Israeli spokesperson later claimed that Sharon had been
misunderstood. France then postponed a visit by Sharon. Upon his visit, both Sharon and French President Jacques Chirac were described as showing a willingness to put the issue behind them.
On July 26, 2005, Israeli attorney general Menachem Mazuz announced that he would indict Sharon's son, Omri, on
charges of corruption. Omri had parliamentary immunity at the time, but indicated willingness to stand trial. The Knesset passed
a law limiting members' immunity in order to allow the indictment and Omri was formally indicted on August 28, 2005, charged with felonies of
political corruption and with perjury. Omri agreed to plead guilty
[18]. He then resigned from the Knesset and was sentenced to
nine months in prison, a nine-month suspended sentence, and a fine of 300,000 NIS.[19]
Unilateral disengagement
-
In May 2003, Sharon endorsed the Road Map for Peace put forth by the United
States, European Union, and Russia, which opened a
dialogue with Mahmud Abbas, and announced his commitment to the creation of a Palestinian
state in the future.
He has embarked on a course of unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, while
maintaining control of its coastline and airspace. Sharon's plan has been welcomed by both the Palestinian Authority and Israel's left wing
as a step towards a final peace settlement.[citation needed] However, it has been greeted with opposition from within his own Likud
party and from other right wing Israelis, on national security, military, and religious grounds.
Putting the peace process in formaldehyde
Detractors have publicly distrusted Sharon's motives for this plan, and their suspicions were further roused after publication
of an interview with top Sharon aide Dov Weisglass in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on
October 8, 2004, in which he explained Israel's motivation for
withdrawing from Gaza. He told the newspaper:
- "Palestinian terrorism must end before a political process leading to a Palestinian state begins. Otherwise, the result would
be a Palestinian state with terrorism. ... The Gaza withdrawal would allow Israel to delay negotiations, and a Palestinian state, until such time that their leadership abandons violence. The significance of the
disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process, and when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a
Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package
called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with
authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress. The disengagement is
actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the
Palestinians."
Disengagement from Gaza
On December 1, 2004, Sharon dismissed five ministers from
the Shinui party for voting against the government's 2005 budget. In January 2005 Sharon formed a national unity government that included representatives of Likud, Labor, and Meimad and Degel HaTorah as "out-of-government" supporters without any
seats in the government (Haredi parties usually reject having ministerial offices as a
policy). Between August 16-30 2005, Sharon controversially expelled 9,480 Jewish settlers from 21 settlements in Gaza and four
settlements in the northern West Bank. Once it became clear that the evictions were definitely going ahead a group of
conservative Rabbis, led by Rabbi Yosef Dayan, placed an
ancient curse on him known as the Pulsa diNura, calling on the Angel of Death to intervene and kill him. After Israeli soldiers bulldozed every settlement structure except
for several former synagogues, Israeli soldiers formally left Gaza on September 11, 2005 and closed the border fence at Kissufim. The synagogues were later looted and burned to the ground by Palestinians. While his decision to
withdraw from Gaza sparked bitter protests from members of the Likud party and the settler movement, opinion polls showed that it
was a popular move among most of the Israeli electorate.[citation needed] On September 27, 2005, Sharon narrowly defeated a leadership challenge by a 52-48 percent vote. The move was initiated within the
central committee of the governing Likud party by Sharon's main rival, Binyamin
Netanyahu, who had left the cabinet to protest Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza. The measure was an attempt by Netanyahu to
call an early primary in November 2005 to choose the party's leader.
Founding of Kadima
-
On November 21, 2005, Sharon resigned as head of Likud, and
dissolved parliament to form a new center-left party called Kadima ("Forward"). November polls indicated that Sharon was likely to be returned to the prime ministership. On
December 20, 2005, Sharon's longtime rival Benjamin Netanyahu
was elected his successor as leader of Likud.[20] Following
Sharon's incapacitation, Ehud Olmert replaced Sharon as Kadima's leader. Netanyahu, along with Labor's Amir Peretz, were Kadima's chief rivals in the
March 2006 elections.
In the elections, which saw Israel's lowest-ever voter turnout[citation needed], Kadima received the most Knesset seats, followed by Labor. The new
governing coalition installed in May 2006 includes Kadima, with Olmert as Prime Minister, Labor (including Peretz as Defense
Minster), the Gil (Pensioner's) Party, the Shas religious party, and Yisrael
Beiteinu.
Business and personal life
In 1972, upon his discharge from the army, Ariel Sharon purchased his Sycamore Ranch, located Sderot and the Beit Kama
junction, for two million Israel liras. The purchase was financed by two American friends: Sam Wachs and Meshulam Riklis. Riklis
later helped Sharon fund the libel suit against Time Magazine.
Incapacitation
-
Sharon was hospitalized on December 18, 2005 after
suffering a minor ischemic stroke. During his hospital stay, doctors discovered a heart ailment
requiring surgery and ordered bed rest pending a cardiac catheterization
scheduled for January 5, 2006. Instead, Sharon returned
immediately to work and suffered a massive stroke on January 4, the day before surgery. After two surgeries lasting 7 and 14
hours, doctors stopped bleeding in Sharon's brain, but couldn't prevent him from entering a permanent coma.[21] Subsequent media reports indicated
that Sharon had been diagnosed with Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) during
his December hospitalisation. Hadassah Hospital Director Shlomo Mor-Yosef
declined to respond to criticism that the combination of CAA and blood thinners after Sharon's December stroke may have caused
his more serious, subsequent stroke.[22]
Then-Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
became acting Prime Minister the night of Sharon's second stroke.
Knesset elections followed in March, with Olmert and Sharon's
Kadima party winning a plurality. The next month, the Israeli Cabinet declared Sharon permanently
incapacitated and Olmert officially became Prime Minister of Israel on April 14,
2006.
Sharon has undergone a series of subsequent surgeries related to his comatose state. He has
remained in a long-term care facility since November 6, 2006.[23] Medical experts indicate that his
cognitive abilities were likely to have been destroyed by the massive stroke. He is in a
persistent vegetative state with extremely low chances of recovery.
Notes
