Sharon audiobook

A consummate, deep , passionate portrayal of both the life of the larger than life Ariel Sharon, soldier and statesman , a valiant, courageous, patriotic, dedicated and kind hearted man. A man with a great sense of humour and a bottomless compassion for Jew and gentile alike, a man who had suffered great tragedy throughout his life with tremendous strength and forbearance . An officer and a gentleman A lover of animals who when family Great Dane sadly Ogi died after swallowing a child's pacifier replaced her him with another harlequin Great Dane, and told his two little sons, who had already been through the family suffering loss , that this was Ogi. Ogi had had his ears cut in the customary fashion of the time and the new Ogi had ears uncut . when little Gilad asked what happened to Ogi's ears his father Arik said 'the grew'.A man who had Israel not had war forced on her from before her re-establishment would have loved to be a farmer and cattleman. This would have been his choice of career being a true son of the soil of the Land of Israel (unlike the 'Palestinians' who are in truth intruders on Israel's land ) It is also a history of the Land Israel beginning in the 1920s with the Arab pogroms against Jews beginning in 1920 from which the organized Arab terror in Israel and the Arab-Israel conflict of today should be dated. The conflict is therefore nearly century old.Some see the murder of Rabbi Avraham Shlomo Zalman Tzoref in 1851 as the first nationalistically motivated murder of Jews by Arabs - the birth of Palestinian terror.Previous murders had been deemed as a result of religious or financial conflicts or whatever other motives Arabs have had to murder Jews since the beginning of Islam.The book cover's Arik's childhood and youth, and the roots of his parents as well as his role in the Haganah in the 1948 War of Independence, his command of the force that rooted out.He reveals the true context of affairs behind incidents ,which Israel's many enemy propagandists,have used to malign him and Israel.For example, Israel-hating ideologues like to refer to raid against Arab terrorists in the Arab border village of Kibbiya in 1953.They like to point to unintentional casualties of Arab civilians, as proof of 'Zionist atrocities' but the truth is that raid followed years of bloody attacks into Israel by Palestinian terrorists, a reign of terror against Israel's civilian population, living in border areas. In 1951 , 137 Israelis were murdered by terrorists, almost all civilians, many of them women and children.In 1952, the number rose to 162.1953 was especially terrible. In that year over 3000 incidents took place, almost ten a day. Again there were over 160 deaths. Israel took it's case to the UN, but it was ignored. Eventually it undertook action aimed at terror bases. The raid on Kibbiya was mounted in response to a particulalrly horrendous incident in the town of Yehud, in which terrorists, murdered a young mother and her two infants, one and two years old while they were asleep. Police investigations revealed that the raid had been mounted from the Arab border village of Kibbiya, into an area that had been subject to terror attacks almost every day. It Kibbiya, Israeli forces fought a battle against Palestinian terrorists, backed by Jordanian army units. Several Arab civilians died when buildings in the village were destroyed as always happens in war. Israeli forces had actually taken Arab children to safety, but this too has been ignored in leftist and Moslem propaganda accounts.All Israeli actions have always been in retaliation to Arab terror against Israel's people. Israel has never acted, except in reaction to attacks and ugly threats against her people, a fact anti-Israel hate-mongers have always hidden.It was the Sic Day War and Yom Kippur War in which Sharon acquired his legendary status as one of Israel's greatest generals. He disliked politics but for the sake of Israel was an engineer of the merger of Menachem Begin's Herut Party with various smaller parties to from the Likud bloc.During the first term of office of Yitzhak Rabin , Ariel Sharon (who always had cordial relations with Sharon) acted as a special security adviser.The author Gilad makes a number of perspicacious and salient points about the gross hypocrisy of Israel's enemies and critics.In referring to the heroic raid on Entebbe by Israeli commandos which rescued Jews taken captive by German and Palestinian terrorists Gilad writes of the response : "Western countries praised Israel for it's actions, but the Soviet Bloc and the Arab countries condemned the raid and the UN, under the direction of Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, condemned the rescue operation, labeling it 'a flagrant aggression' This from a man who had a Nazi past.In Chapter 14 the author presents a comprehensive list of terror attacks from the Palestinian terrorists on Israeli civilians , including many women and children, which eventually led to Israel going into Lebanon to destroy the PLO's terrorist network.An example includes the incident where "on May 22, 1970 , a squad of terrorists knowingly ambushed a bus of school children on the way to the village of Avivim on the northern border of the school in the village Dovev. They fired anti tank weapons at the bus, killing twelve chilren".And the killing by Muslim Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar of an Israeli policeman in his aprtment at home and his two little girls. The policeman Danny was killed in front of his daughter Einat who was bludgeoned to death by Kuntar. Smadar Haran , wife and mother was the only one who survived.As Gilead documents "Kuntar is considered a hero to Palestinians and members of the Shiite terror organization Hezbollah . After his release President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran saw fit , on November 24, 2008 and January 30 2009, respectively to award him a medal of honour".The attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov may have set the date, but it most certainly did not bring about the 1982 Lebanon War, the author points out.Israel was reacting to 14 years of Palestinian terror against her population.Another incident in which propagandists have played up to demonize Israel through the years has been Sabra and Shatilla. For years PLO terrorists, had inflicted a reign of terror against Lebanon's Christian population, murdering tens of thousands of Christian men, women and children. At Damour in 1976, the Christian village was destoyed on Arafat's orders, and hundreds of Lebanese civillians, mainly women and children were butchered. After the assasination of Christian President Bashir Gemayel, the IDF had allowed Christian Phalangist fighters into the Sabra and Shatilla areas of Beirut, to flush out PLO units controlling the area.Palestinian civillians had died in the fighting, though this was far less than that inflicted in many massacres by the PLO and Syrians of Christian Lebanese dowen the years. For this their were massive protests in Israel, and a massive international media offensive against Israel.Apart from clarifying various propaganda myths, Gilad Sharon talks about his own life and his fathers' life , it's trials,tribulations and tragedies, as well as Arik Sharon's vision for Israel as a Jewish State, the project of Jews all over the world. Of Israeli identity being at one with Jewish identity, and of the Jews unbroken presence in the Land of Israel, for over three thousand years.The author makes no bones of his disdain for certain Israeli leaders such as Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert and Benyamin Nentanyahu describing Olmert as 'smug and arrogant' and of Netanyahu 'Not only was he subversive but he was also a coward'. He also documents in detail , verbatim , the various conversations between Prime Minister Sharon and other statesmen such as George W Bush , Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin and Hosni Mubarak.As the author documented Arab terror against Israel's civilians from 1968 - 1982 culminating in the 1982 Lebanon War, so he described some of the horrific terror attacks of the 2000-2005 Oslo War.He details the politics and diplomacy behind the 2005 Gaza disengagement and details Arik's reasons.He also gives us an insight into Sharon's wisdom such as Sharon's perceptive understanding of Europe's hostility to Israel : "European hostility to Israel he always believed , was not just linked to the anti-Semitism of old , which had been recycled as anti-Israel and anti-Zionist opinions but also a means of clearing the consciences of many nations. If the Jews, the victims, had turned out to be so dreadful, these cruel and crushing occupiers of the poor Palestinians, then perhaps the sins that these nations had visited upon the the Jews of Europe were not so bad after all"Sharon pointed out to the European Union when they were refusing to include Hamas and Hezbollah on the list of terrorist organizations 'There is no good and bad terror , and all those believe in democracy and liberal values hope that all terror organizations are included in the list".In response to a reporter's question about the events of 911 Arik said that Israel would not be Czechoslovakia implying that Israel would not allow itself to be sacrificed by the West to appease the Arab world , as the West had sacrificed Czechoslovakia to appease Germany in 1938".The author takes us to his father's tragic first and second stroke, the latter leaving him in a vegetative state, and his family's refusal to switch off Arik's life machine.The book was published before Arik Sharon's passing in January 2014.

Ostensibly a life account of Ariel Sharon, this book is much more. This work was undertaken and written by his son Gilad Sharon and encompasses a vast array of historical (emphasis on VAST) documents and sometimes day-by-day accounts. The attention to detail is sublime: the family archived letters, notes, photographs, conversation transcripts, innumerable lists of names both intimate and political, and other details that are normally not brought to light in such detail within biographies. Nearly every paragraph includes the date of the event in question. Far from being tedious, the reader is kept on the edge of his or her seat almost stepping back into recent history through the realistic portrayal on the pages. This book is certainly an historical account of Israel via the life of Ariel Sharon and the author is in my estimation a scholar’s scholar.The first few pages were slow until I adjusted to the cadence of the author’s writing and style; though this applies to quite nearly every book I read. In other words, it takes a few dozen pages to get me in the groove then I’m totally aboard. This book was no different in that regard. I was so happy to have a lot of gaps filled in for me. Certainly I am not an expert on the Middle East but I have casually followed Middle Eastern politics throughout my adult life so I came to the book with a zeal for the topic. Yet there were so many details regarding wars, diplomacy, key players, etc. that the book offered up and helped me to understand the inner workings of culture and politics in that region of the world. Given the amount of misinformation spread regarding Israel, Gilad’s extensive use of documentation provided the assurance that the reader was learning the authentic turn of events and for this I am thankful that Gilad undertook this, no doubt, very difficult book about his father’s very busy public life.In addition, I gained an immense respect and admiration for the person of Ariel Sharon. He was a man who believed in keeping his word, he was loyal to his family, his friends, and to the Jewish people. His parents instilled these values in him along with the love for agriculture and ranching. Sharon is one of the steadfast personages that come to us only from time to time and in whom we look as a role model. Despite, his primary allegance to the Jewish people, he nonetheless initiated and orchestrated the annexation of Gaza to the Palestinians. No one can doubt that Sharon's desire for peace with his neighbors is anything other than deeply sincere.I recommend this book to folks who are history, politics, or journalism-oriented. Also, I highly recommend this for folks who are delving into the details of the Israel-Palestinian issue. Given all the media attention to Israel – some of it true but much of it twisted and misleading – this book definitely helps to set the record straight. In fact, it can be seen as a corrective. I would give this book more than 5 stars if I had the option.

While Gilad Sharon documents the life of his father Ariel Sharon in his book, he is really providing a history of Israel as a nation. He clearly sees his father in heroic terms and spends time showing that his father's way of running the country was correct and Israel would be in better shape if only his father was there to lead it. I was surpised by some of the bluntness of his negative comments he makes of other Israeli leaders and political figures. It is clear even without his final chapter why he was unable to give up on his father's life when the doctors told him the situation was hopeless. Ariel Sharon has been in a coma now for 6 years and his son will continue to visit him every day of his life. He clearly cannot let him go on any level. Well written and compelling story.

This is an outstanding view into the life of Sharon, from his earliest days until his death. A must read for all those who desire a better understanding of the passion and strength of a great Israeli leader.