A s Israeli journalists Nir Hefez and Gadi Bloom ask in the beginning of their new book, , will Sharon be remembered as the man who laid the basis for resolving a 150-year conflict with the Palestinians? Or will future generations think of him as the man responsible for helping to create a terrorist-governed Palestinian state, for promoting the massive construction of settlements (many of which were likely to prove unsustainable), and for generating the growth of Hezbollah in Lebanon with a misbegotten war in 1982 that also stained him–and Israel–with the massacres in Sabra and Shatila? Considering how this extraordinary and controversial Israeli leader strode across the history of the Middle East over the past half-century, such a question cannot be definitively answered until the future of this region is settled.

Writing in the summer of 2006, with Hamas in control of Gaza and Hezbollah having provoked a conflict that has many in the international community questioning the logic of Israel’s response, one might be tempted to say that history’s verdict is already in, and it is not kind to Sharon. Indeed, looking through the prism of today’s events, Gaza is hardly a success story, having devolved into chaos and become a platform for attacks against Israel. Hefez and Bloom quote Sharon criticizing Shimon Peres during the first intifada in 1989 for calling for the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, declaring then that "if we leave, the terrorists will fire cannons and missiles on Sderot and Ashkelon [two Israeli cities just outside of Gaza], just as they did in Lebanon." Sharon’s criticism at the time looks remarkably prescient, even though six years later he proceeded to pursue precisely the policy he had earlier criticized, and there has been rocket fire out of Gaza and into Israel ever since the withdrawal.