Ties to Land Part of Sharon's Mystique

AP on Yahoo ^ | 1/10/06 | Brian Murphy - ap

[NormsRevenge]

KFAR MALAL, Israel - In moments of reflection, Ariel Sharon liked to describe boyhood images that always drifted back to the land: tilling the sun-hardened soil with his father, the sticky-sweet aroma of lemon groves, daybreak hikes into the desert that slope down to the Dead Sea.

As Sharon's prominence grew, so did the significance of these tales to Israel's collective conscience.

They form part of the core of a modern mythology that was laid down bit by bit as Sharon moved from the fields to the battlefields to politics, creating a larger-than-life aura for a nation hungry for heroic nostalgia and the uncomplicated idealism of the days before statehood.

Nothing figures more prominently in these desires than land. The tales of early Jewish immigrants from Europe turning scrubland into farms and orchards carry a power for Israelis that's as fundamental as Joan of Arc for the French or the Wild West for Americans.

It's also an icon with fading connections to the present. Many communal farms have disbanded. The fields Sharon once worked have been swallowed by greater Tel Aviv. Last year Sharon toppled the doctrine of land at all costs — which he once championed — by removing settlers from the Gaza Strip.

"Sharon reminds people of the old secular ideals of the first Jewish settlers," said Nachman Ben-Yehuda, a sociology professor at Hebrew University. "They didn't come from Europe to become merchants or money changers. They came to work the land. This holds mythical dimensions in the mind of the nation."

But Israel has been forced to make room for new realities. Sharon in recent years adopted an outlook based on demographics rather than geography: deciding it's more essential to maintain the Jewish majority in the Israeli heartland rather than fight a losing birthrate battle with Palestinians in Gaza and perhaps elsewhere.

"Sharon has created his own mythology," said Ben-Yehuda. "In Israel, it's always about land."

Kfar Malal, where Sharon lived until a teenager, was one of Israel's first moshavim, or agricultural communities in which individual farmers shared some resources — a looser arrangement than the communal-style philosophy of the kibbutz movement.

In the early 1970s, Sharon took control of Havat Hashikmim, or Sycamore Ranch, nearly 1,000 acres of rolling hills 35 miles from Jerusalem. Even as prime minister, Sharon returned nearly every night by motorcade or helicopter, and he was at the ranch when he fell ill Jan. 4.

Sharon attended ceremonies last year to mark the 90th anniversary of Kfar Malal, and evoked memories from an era long past.

"My strength comes from the family and also from putting work into the citrus grove and plowing the vineyard and from nights of guard duty," he said.

Years ago, urban sprawl reached the village. Sharon's boyhood home is hard against a busy boulevard lined by shops and falafel stalls. Some narrow streets lead to what's left of Sharon's boyhood vistas: a few fields and lemon groves. Apartment buildings sit in the distance.

A group of Filipino workers finished installing an irrigation system on a field of yams. The field's owner recalled that the young Sharon was kept on a tight leash by his Russian-born father.

"His father was a very tough man," said Moshe, who refused to give his last name.

Moshe says Sharon changed after he left — first to join the Haganah, the underground militia, and later as he rose in the Israeli forces, including command in the 1950s of "Unit 101" that was accused of reprisals against Arabs.

"He would bring back weapons from Unit 101 and we'd fire them in the lemon trees," said Moshe, who is seven years younger than the 77-year-old Sharon. "He had become very confident."

Sharon's public reminiscences, however, mostly concentrated on the simple pleasures of rural life. In a 2001 interview with Haaretz magazine, he described working with his father in a watermelon patch. He also recounted desert hikes and the satisfaction of working the land.

"I don't know whether it's possible to recapture the feeling of excitement I had then after a day of plowing in the field," he told the magazine.

Sharon took pride in showing off his ranch, and the grave of his wife, Lily, sits on a nearby hill surrounded by cactuses and red bougainvillea. It is widely believed Sharon wants this as his final resting place.

A few miles away, evicted Gaza settlers live in a tent city. A banner counts the days since they were forced out. A sign reads: "Sharon, you have your land. Where's ours?"

[NormsRevenge]

Ariel Sharon attends the proclamation ceremony of the Shlomzion party in this 1977 photo with his son Gilad, second left, wife Lily, third left, and son Omri, forth left. In moments of reflection, Ariel Sharon liked to describe boyhood images that always drifted back to the land: tilling the sun-hardened soil in a watermelon patch with his father, the sticky-sweet aroma of lemon groves, daybreak hikes into the desert that slope down to the Dead Sea. As Sharon's prominence grew over the decades, so did the significance of these tales on Israel's collective consciousness. (AP Photo/Dudu Grunshpan)

[NormsRevenge]

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon peers through his glasses during a press conference in January 2005. Doctors bringing Sharon out of a medically induced coma declared that the Israeli premier's life was no longer in danger and that there were increased signs of brain activity.(AFP/File/Gali Tibbon)

[sinanju]

In other words, like so many american politicians, poets and philosophers who extolled the virtues of sod-busting he actually threw down the hoe and ran away at the first opportunity, only getting sentimental about it later in life.

That seems to be a universal human trait. Nobody wants to be a peasant toiler if they have a choice in the matter.

[claudiustg]

Sharon went away to war, a war that will outlast even him.

[squidly]

C'mon, the guy only dedicated his life to the defense of his country. Give him a break.