Tuesday, February 20, 2007
 From Israeli daily Haaretz Thu., February 15, 2007: ""Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait" by Uri Dan, Palgrave Macmillan, 320 pages, $18.45
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This is the story of a man whose life brought him into Sharon's intimate circle, from Sharon's early days as a paratrooper commander leading Israeli reprisal operations to his final days as prime minister. When Dan turned 70, Sharon wrote to him in a moving letter: "To me you were and always will be a hardworking and resourceful journalist, an author and an advisor, a fearless and impartial professional. But, more than anything, you are to me a true friend who has always been there, in the moments of joy and elation; in the harsh hours of personal pain and tragedy; in the days of joyous victory and in dark nights under crossfire ... or during the retaliation missions and in the other battlefields, too numerous to be described here."
Dan reveals a little and conceals much when he hints that Arafat's death was not caused by any illness. He himself suggested to Sharon that Arafat be captured and brought to trial in Jerusalem, like Eichmann, but Sharon reassured him that he was dealing with the problem in his own way. Then Arafat fell ill, was flown to Paris for treatment and died. Was Sharon involved? This is what Dan wrote then in Maariv that in the history books prime minister Ariel Sharon will be remembered as the man who eliminated Yasser Arafat without killing him. Let every reader figure it out for himself.
In hindsight
Speaking of George Bush, with whom Sharon developed a very close relationship, Uri Dan recalls that Sharon's delicacy made him reluctant to repeat what the president had told him when they discussed Osama bin Laden. Finally he relented. And here is what the leader of the Western world, valiant warrior in the battle of cultures, promised to do to bin Laden if he caught him: "I will screw him in the ass!"
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