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INDEPTH: MIDDLE EAST
Ariel Sharon - Milestones of his career
CBC News Online | Jan. 4, 2006
Feb. 27, 1928: Born Ariel Scheinermann in Kfar Malal, a town in Palestine, then a British mandate, to a German-Polish father and a Russian mother.
1942: Sharon joins the Haganah, an underground militia that precedes the Israeli Defence Force.
May 14, 1948: The State of Israel is proclaimed.
1948-49: Sharon commands a platoon during the Arab-Israeli war. He is severely wounded in one of the battles but recovers from his injuries. Sharon is promoted to company commander.
1949: Armistice is declared and Israel controls three-quarters of the former Palestine. Jordan takes the West Bank and Egypt holds the Gaza Strip. Palestinians take no land.
1953: After time spent studying history and Middle Eastern culture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Sharon returns to military service. With the rank of major, he leads a group of special operations troops called "Unit 101" that gains a reputation for carrying out missions across enemy lines.
Oct. 14, 1953: More than 60 Jordanian civilians are killed in an attack on the village of Qibya located in the West Bank. Sharon and his Unit 101 are condemned for the extent of casualties. Later investigation finds that the order for the attack came from one of Sharon's superiors. Unit 101 is merged with a brigade of paratroopers.
1956: Sharon, now in command of the brigade, takes over the Mitla Pass during a battle of the Suez War that left 40 Israeli troops dead. Sharon fields criticism from all sides for his military strategy.
June 1967: Sharon, having earned a law degree from Tel Aviv University and now holding the rank of brigadier general, leads a powerful division into the Six-Day War. Israel captures East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
1969: Sharon is appointed to head the Israeli Defence Force's southern command.
1973: Sharon retires from the military and is elected to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, as part of the right-wing Likud party.
Oct. 6, 1973: At the start of the Yom Kippur War, Sharon resigns from the Knesset and is called back to military service to command a reserve division that later captures a part of the Suez Canal.
1974: Sharon's strategy is again called into question, this time before a military tribunal. Although the tribunal rules his military action effective, his decisions at Suez were in violation of his orders from the head of Southern Command. Amid growing tension between Sharon and the Southern Command, Sharon is dismissed from military duty.
1975: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin makes Sharon his special security advisor.
1977: Sharon is re-elected to Knesset.
1977-81: Prime Minister Menachem Begin appoints Sharon minister of agriculture.
1981-1983: Sharon serves as Begin's minister of defence. In 1982, Israel invades Lebanon in a strike that results in the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Several hundred Palestinians living in two Beirut refugee camps are killed in raids carried out by a Lebanese-Christian militia allied to Israel. A committee investigating the massacre recommends the removal of Sharon as minister of defence for reasons of negligence. Sharon is dismissed by Begin but maintains his Knesset position in the governments that follow.
1987: Time magazine publishes a story implicating Sharon in the Beirut massacre. Sharon sues the magazine for libel. Although Time could not prove its allegations, Sharon loses the suit because he is unable to prove "knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth."
1996-1998: Sharon serves in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government as minister of national infrastructure.
1998-1999: Netanyahu makes Sharon his foreign minister. After the election of Ehud Barak's Labour party, Sharon takes leadership of the Likud party.
September 28, 2000: Sharon goes to the site in Jerusalem known as the Temple Mount in Judaism and Haram esh Sharif in Islam. His visit sparks fighting between Israelis and Palestinians that escalates into the second intefadeh. The renewed violence damages Barak's popularity.
October 2000: Barak proposes a coalition government. Sharon rejects the offer.
2001: Sharon is elected prime minister of Israel. Relatives of the victims of the Beirut massacre begin proceedings in Belgium to have Sharon indicted for war crimes.
June 2002: A Brussels appeal court dismisses the lawsuit as inadmissible.
Jan. 20, 2004: Israeli courts charge developer David Appel with attempting to bribe the government via Gilad Sharon, the prime minister's son and an employee of Appel's property development firm.
Nov. 20, 2005: Ariel Sharon leaves the Likud party, calls for the dissolution of parliament and forms a new centrist party, Kadima (meaning "forward" in English).
Dec. 20, 2005: Benjamin Netanyahu elected new leader of Likud, succeeding Sharon. Netanyahu and
the Labour Party's Amir Peretz are to face Sharon in elections set for March 28, 2006.
Jan. 4, 2006: Sharon's powers as prime minister are transferred to Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert after Sharon suffers a serious stroke, less than three weeks after having a minor stroke.
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