Gideon Levy When Ariel Sharon Took Gideon Levy to Gaza to Convince Him That Disengagement Is a Mistake
We arranged to meet early that morning at the ranch. The secretary told me to turn left after the PazChem Fine Chemicals sign. Waze wasn’t even a dream back then, nor did anyone dream of leaving t IN the Gaza Strip then, either. After breakfast in Lily’s kitchen, Arik took me to the bedroom balcony, on the second floor, to show me the vine tangled around its metalwork, from which he picked a cluster of grapes every morning during the season and brought them to Lily in bed – or so he related. It was a November day in 1989, and I don’t remember whether there were still clusters on the vine, but the story of the grapes worked its spell, indelibly. As has often been recounted, Lily and Ariel Sharon were warm and gracious hosts, and my impressions from a few visits to their Sycamore Ranch in the Negev are etched upon my heart. There was something intoxicating, bedazzling about them. My trip with Sharon to the Gaza Strip that same day is another unforgettable memory. The then-minister of in