Following a distinguished, if controversial, military career, General Ariel Sharon (born 1928) entered Israeli politics in 1973. He then became a prominent public figure, serving as defense minister during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. In 2001, he became Prime Minister as leader of the Likud party.

Ariel ("Arik") Sharon, one of Israel's most controversial military and political figures, was born in 1928 at Kfar Mallah, an early Jewish farming settlement in the central Sharon valley of what was then British-mandated Palestine. His parents were Shmuel and Dvora Scheinerman, ardent Zionists who had emigrated from Russia following World War I. Growing up at a time when the Arab-Jewish struggle over Palestine intensified, young Sharon combined a high school education with membership in the underground Jewish military organization, the Haganah.

In 1945 Sharon began a military career which continued until 1973 and which saw him participate in each of the major campaigns waged by the Israel...