NEWSWEEK COVER: 'Sharon's Shadow: What Now for Israel?' - Personal

Remembrance

Sharon On His Beliefs: '...The Important Thing Is Not to be Afraid to Fall.

I'm Not Afraid to Say What I Think or to Fight for What I Believe'

As Prime Minister: 'I Believe I Am the One Who Can Make Peace'

NEW YORK, Jan. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Through most of his political career,
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who suffered a serious stroke
earlier this week, was regarded as a hardliner and blamed for a failed
war and the slaughter of Palestinians refugees. In 1984, Sharon sued
Time magazine for libel claiming the magazine had written that he was
directly involved in the massacres in the Sabra and Shatila refugee
camps outside Beirut. At the trial, "the Israeli press corps
understood what we American journalists failed to grasp: that if
Sharon emerged victorious, it would be the first step in a political
comeback," writes Special Diplomatic Correspondent Lally Weymouth, who
offers a personal remembrance of Sharon as part of this week's cover
package "Sharon's Shadow: What Now for Israel?"

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060108/NYSU015 )

"During a break in the trial I was interviewing him in a back room of
the courthouse. Suddenly he sang a little song for me and then
translated the Hebrew words. The lyrics: 'All the world is a very
narrow bridge, and the important thing is not to be afraid to fall.'
"I'm not afraid to say what I think," he said, "or to fight for what I
believe." He won his fight in the New York courthouse, and, little by
little, he worked his way back through the labyrinth of Israeli
politics," writes Weymouth in the January 16 issue of Newsweek (on
newsstands Monday, January 9).

In an interview after he became prime minister in 2001, Sharon told
Weymouth, "I believe I am the one who can make peace. I saw all the
horrors of war. I participated in all the wars of Israel. In every
battle I was in the hardest parts... I lost my best friends in battles
and I was seriously injured twice. I felt all those terrible pains in
hospitals. I had to take decisions of life and death of others and of
myself. Therefore, I believe that I understand the importance of peace
better than the politicians who speak about peace but never had the
experience that I had... I understand the importance of peace. But
peace is a serious deed. It's not an election gimmick. And peace
should provide security for the Jewish people."

Weymouth writes, "He drove me around the West Bank one day. As we
lunched under an olive tree, he spread out his maps and explained that
Jews should be able to live anywhere in Greater Israel. The tour was a
ritual he conducted for anyone who would listen, the explanation
something that came from his heart. In interview after interview, he
explained to me that he wanted peace because he had been a warrior,
and warriors knew things that mere politicians could not."

(Read entire cover package at www.Newsweek.com. Click "Pressroom" for news

releases.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10756255/site/newsweek/ SOURCE Newsweek