February 27, 1928
Ariel Sharon, Israel’s 11th prime minister, is born Ariel Scheinerman in K’far Malal (near Hod Hasharon) to political socialist parents who immigrated to Eretz Yisrael during the Second Aliyah.
Sharon joins the Haganah in 1945 and serves in the War of Independence, where he was wounded in the Battle of Latrun. He rises quickly through the ranks despite a reputation for a lack of restraint, fighting as a paratroop commander in the 1956 Sinai campaign, a major general in the June 1967 Six-Day War and commander of an armored division in the October 1973 Yom Kippur War.
In 1981, Menachem Begin appoints him defense minister, and during his tenure Israel launches 1982’s Operation Peace for the Galilee, the First Lebanon War, for which he is accused of expanding the operation beyond its original intent. Sharon is forced to resign from the Cabinet after being found negligent in failing to prevent the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by Lebanese Christian Phalanges troops.
He returns to politics shortly afterward and in 1999 is elected the head of the Likud party, becoming prime minister in 2001. As prime minister, Sharon approves construction of the security fence to stop Second Intifada terrorism and oversees the disengagement from Gaza. After facing opposition from the right wing of Likud, he breaks off and forms the Kadima party in 2005. In 2006, he suffers a stroke that leaves him incapacitated for more than seven years. He dies in January 2014.
