Israeli prime minster Ariel Sharon attends a meeting in Jerusalem in December 2005. Source: AP
Sharon with chief of staff Haim Barlev during the 1973 war. Source: AFP
THERE is one moment, more than any other, that Israelis like to recall when they assess the extraordinary career of Ariel Sharon.
It is the day Sharon entered the Sinai desert during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 to confront a surging Egyptian army. Norman Zysblat remembers the moment vividly - he was in the Sinai as an Israeli soldier stationed at the Bir Gafgafa command centre.
Israel occupied the Sinai but the Egyptian army had pushed across the Suez Canal, forcing the Israelis to retreat. Then along came the "Bulldozer" - Ariel Sharon.
Across the desert, the young Zysblat could see Sharon's convoy heading south, loaded with portable bridges and pontoons.
The Israeli commander was preparing a daring manoeuvre.
According to Zysblat, the mere arrival of Sharon bolstered the Israelis - the Egyptians had crossed the Suez and were winning the battle for the Sinai.
"He gave us confidence," Zysblat told Inquirer this week as we stood near Sharon's coffin at Israel's Knesset. "We knew his history as a general and the moment we heard his voice on the (army) radio we said, 'If he's here it's going to be OK'."
Sharon's intervention is credited with turning around the war for Israel: he defied the wisdom of the time that the Suez could not be crossed at the point he was considering. He took his soldiers south of the Egyptian army, which was confident the Israelis could not attack from the south.
Using the bridges and pontoons, Sharon not just crossed the canal but went behind enemy lines and attacked the Egyptians from the south, surrounding them with tanks in what amounted to an open-air prison.
This gave Henry Kissinger, the US secretary of state, the leverage to convince Egypt to end the war.
As Ariel Sharon, the 11th prime minister of Israel, was buried this week it was the Suez battle that was most remembered.
Sharon was, primarily, a warrior and conqueror - he took land in war, including the Suez Canal and Lebanon, and then took more land through settlements in the West Bank. Sharon the conqueror was a hero. But Sharon the withdrawer - when he ordered the pull-out from Gaza in 2005 - alienated many Israelis.
Upon his death a prominent Yeshiva declared: "Hearty congratulations to Ariel Sharon on the occasion of his death."
An influential member of the Knesset and spokeswoman for settlers, Orit Struck, wrote that Sharon's illness - he suffered a stroke while prime minister in 2006 and lay in a coma for eight years - had "saved the State of Israel from horrible decline".
"One cannot thank the Lord for having Sharon taken out of our public sphere before he managed to put the residents of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and its periphery through the same tragedy he put the residents of (Gaza settlement Gush Katif) and the Gaza Strip border communities," she wrote. Both the Yeshiva and Struck apologised, but they spoke for many in Israel.
Dani Dayan, another settler leader, was also on the forecourt of the Knesset to pay tribute to Sharon.
"He was the greatest military hero the Jewish people had since the Maccabees," he told Inquirer. "He also single-handedly saved Israel in 1973 by crossing the Suez Canal and destroying the Egyptian army. His achievements are incredible. At a time when everyone said terror could not be destroyed by force he did it, in 2003, putting an end to the second intifada.
"Perhaps the most important thing is that he changed forever the landscape of Israel by establishing dozens of communities all over the country, not just in Judea and Samaria."
What about the disengagement from Gaza?
"This is the Ariel Sharon I prefer not to remember," he said.
Had not Sharon's support for settlements made US Secretary of State John Kerry's attempt to achieve a two-state solution almost impossible?
"I don't think the two-state solution will bring peace because of Palestinian intransigence," Dayan said. "My assessment is the status quo is here for many years. Right now we have no political solution on the horizon."
Sharon was referred to as "The Father of Settlements". While he withdrew about 10,000 settlers from Gaza, he was responsible, according to Israel's Maariv newspaper, for 100,000 new settlers in the West Bank.
It is those settlements, surging again under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which are one of the factors making any attempt by Kerry to find a peace agreement so difficult.
Figures from Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics show the number of West Bank settler housing starts increased by 132 per cent in the first three quarters of 2013.
The Jerusalem Post said if this "growth spurt" continued at this pace it could be the highest growth rate for a decade.
Israel's settlements are regarded as illegal under international law - the Fourth Geneva Convention states: "The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
A pioneer of the settler movement, Daniella Weiss, told Inquirer two years ago that in the 1970s and 80s she would regularly meet Sharon - who held the ministries of Agriculture, Housing and then Defence - to strategically locate new settlements to make a Palestinian state impossible. Weiss said that strategy continued.
"All the new outposts are all planned in a way that they will be in between the spaces that were left open," she said. The aim to make a Palestinian state impossible has largely been successful - anyone who today drives across the West Bank will see settlements dominating many hilltops.
In addition to a surge in new settlements there is a surge in illegal outposts. These have no legal approval by Israel but Israeli authorities are allowing most of them to stand.
Inquirer recently visited one outpost which, even though illegal under Israeli law, had Israeli soldiers stationed there.
The reason Kerry's new effort - the US suggests this may be the last chance for a two-state solution - will probably fail is because support for the settlements is entrenched in the Israeli government. That was demonstrated this week with the revelations of a stinging personal attack on Kerry by Moshe Yaalon, the Defence Minister. Yaalon, a supporter of settlements, had been caught privately describing Kerry as "obsessive and messianic". The Times of Israel's headline said it all: "Defence Minister trashes Kerry and his peace proposals."
Yaalon apologised - it was a busy week for apologies - but the incident confirmed that while Yaalon says he supports Kerry, privately he is undermining him.
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is leading the peace negotiations, lambasted Yaalon: "One can be opposed to negotiations in a germane and responsible way and not lash out and destroy our relations with our best friend."
But Yaalon speaks for many of his colleagues.
The Deputy Foreign Minister, Zeev Elkin, is opposed to a Palestinian state, and has been recruiting more settlers to join the ruling Likud party; Minister for the Economy Naftali Bennett says his Jewish Home party will leave the government should a Palestinian state be proposed; Housing Minister Uri Ariel has vowed to expand settlements; Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is careful in his wording about a Palestinian state, but himself lives in a settlement; Deputy Defence Minister Danny Danon said last June that if there was a move to promote a two-state solution "you will see forces blocking it within the party and the government".
But the status quo is deteriorating - violence in the West Bank is worsening and analysts warn a third intifada is likely, particularly if current talks fail.
Former head of Shin Bet, Israel's security organisation, Yuval Diskin, said he believed there was no chance of an agreement. "It's obvious that, at least according to the current political map, there is no chance the Israeli public will accept a peace agreement," he said.
Indeed, a new poll found 80 per cent of Israelis had no faith in Kerry. The poll questioned Israelis about a deal which would include: land swaps, Israel keeping all major settlement blocs and Palestinians recognising Israel as a Jewish state, a condition imposed by Netanyahu but resisted by Palestinians who argue that such a move would leave in limbo the 20 per cent of Israelis who are Muslim or Christian.
Ominously, 53 per cent of respondents opposed such a deal. "That is a depressing datum," Maariv reported. "Israel will not get a better agreement than this."
The Kerry peace talks are close to collapse - Sharon may have been so successful as Father of the Settlements that he has made a Palestinian state impossible.
This week US Vice President Joe Biden, in his eulogy, wondered what may have occurred had Sharon remained PM.
"I've been told that, in reflecting on the difference between how he viewed things as a general and as prime minister, he would paraphrase an Israeli song lyric that said, things you see from here look different from over there," Biden said. "What would they have looked like had he lived in good health and led those eight years?"
It is quite possible that just as it took a "bulldozer" to build the settlements, it may also need one to withdraw from them.
John Lyons is The Australian's Middle East correspondent
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