The legacy of Ariel 'the bulldozer' Sharon - Features - Al Jazeera English:
It is easy to forget, with eulogies casting him as the unexpected "peace-maker", that for most of his long military and political career Ariel Sharon was known simply as The Bulldozer. That is certainly how he will be remembered by Palestinians.
His death was announced on Israeli army radio on Saturday. He was 85 years old and had been comatose since 2006.
Mikhael Warschawski, a founder of the joint Israeli-Palestinian advocacy group the Alternative Information Centre, describes Sharon as one of only two "political visionaries" in Israel's history, along with the country's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion.
"Yes, he was brutal, but he was more than that," Warschawski said. "Like Ben Gurion, and unlike modern politicians such as current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he was uninterested in petty party politics. He had a project he would not be distracted from - a view of what Israel is and what it should be."
That vision was ultimately forged by Sharon's military and political experiences.
The former Israeli prime minister and military strategist had been in a coma since 2006 [GALLO/GETTY]
