Biography: Ariel Sharon

The turbulent life and controversial career of Israel's eleventh prime minister is explored in this entry into A&E's long-running Biography series. A former military commander whose victories in the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars found his popularity skyrocketing among the population of Israel, Sharon's misstep in masterminding the calamitous Lebanon invasion nearly derailed his entire political career. Sharon wasn't about to go down so readily though, and after a successful career comeback as a key architect of Israel's West Bank settlement policy, the Prime Minister would walk a precarious tightrope between maintaining Israeli security and appeasing enraged Palestinians during the volatile millennium crossover.