After the Camp David negotiations broke down, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak declared that ‘we have no partner for peace’, and the Israeli public lurched to the Right. Despite promising signs of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators approaching agreement at Taba (unilaterally ended by Israel), the Israeli public elected Ariel Sharon. The Israeli public no longer […]

In The Iron Wall, Oxford Historian Avi Shlaim describes Operation Kinneret. On 11 December 1955, a paratroop brigade, led by Lieutenant Ariel Sharon, attacked a Syrian military installation. The Israeli army killed 50 Syrians, and took 30 Syrian prisoners, suffering six deaths and ten injuries in the process. Shlaim writes that this was ‘an unprovoked […]