Ariel Sharon, Whose Life And Career Shaped Israeli History, Dies --- Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a towering figure in the history of Israel as a soldier and politician, died on Saturday. He was 85.-- His death was announced by Shlomo Noy, the director of Sheba Medical Center where Sharon was being treated. Sharon had been in a coma since he suffered a massive stroke in January 2006 during the last Israeli election campaign, in which he was assured of re-election. -- Sharon's career spanned the birth of the nation and most of the essential turning points in its history. Israelis had a love-hate relationship with Sharon that was beginning to soften only shortly before his death.-- "His career was defined by doing the dirty work that was necessary for the state of Israel both to be born and to survive," said Mark LeVine, professor of contemporary Middle East history at the University of California, Irvine. --- Ariel Sharon was born in 1928 in what was then Palestine under the British mandate. His parents, Shmuel and Devorah Scheinerman, had been Jewish immigrants from Russia after World War I. - More, Mike Shuster, NPR, at: http://www.npr.org/2012/12/30/5132166/reports-ariel-sharon-whose-life-and-career-shaped-israeli-history-dies