ARIEL SHARON’s decision to turn his back on the Israeli Right and recast himself as a man of peace is just the latest transformation in the extraordinary career of the impulsive soldier turned politician.

At 77, when he should be considering retirement to his beloved ranch in southern Israel, the stout former paratrooper has once again proved that he has lost neither his ability to outmanoeuvre his opponents nor his appetite for power.

By announcing the formation of his new “National Responsibility” movement, Mr Sharon has split apart the Likud party he co-founded in 1973 and made a bold dash to dominate the centre ground of Israeli politics before general elections due in March.

The ideological about-face may have astounded his former allies on the Right, but came as no surprise to those who have studied his career.

“By my count Sharon has been a member of six political parties in his 30-year career,” Zeev Chafets, a writer on Israeli politics, said. “He is the very definition of political opportunism.”

The break with Likud began last year when the party opposed his decision to withdraw Jewish settlements from Gaza and hand the territory back to Palestinian control.

He now hopes to isolate Likud on the Right and win enough votes in the Centre to guarantee a place in the next coalition government, possibly as prime minister with a peacemaking mandate.

This extraordinary transformation from legendary “hawk” to born-again “dove” is typical of a man colleagues describe as a “doer rather than a thinker”. Sometimes his gambles have ended in disaster, but on occasion he has also beaten the odds.

This impetuous streak first surfaced when he was a young paratrooper in the Israeli Army, where he earned a reputation as a brilliant but insubordinate officer. He was put in charge of Unit 101, a notorious commando outfit which launched reprisals against Arab villages and earned itself a reputation for brutality.

He went on to command an armoured division during Israel’s victory over Arab armies in the 1967 Six-Day War. But Mr Sharon’s greatest military triumph came after his retirement. As a reserve general he led the counter-attack against Egypt’s assault on the Sinai in 1973, turning potential defeat into a victory with Israeli forces capturing the Suez Canal.

Mr Sharon then threw himself into a roller-coaster political career that has soared and dived with dizzy regularity. It was Mr Sharon who was entrusted with building Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. But it was also Mr Sharon who pulled them down, first the Sinai settlement of Yamit in 1981 and then this summer in Gaza.

But his risk-taking has also ended in disaster. As defence minister in 1982 it was Mr Sharon who plotted the invasion of neighbouring Lebanon and the expulsion of Yassir Arafat and his PLO fighters. The operation led to the massacre of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatilla camps in Beirut by Lebanese Christian Phalange militiamen allied to Israel. An inquiry found Mr Sharon “indirectly responsible” and he was forced to resign and consigned to take a back seat in politics for much of the next two decades.

When he did resurface it was again in controversial circumstances. His visit to Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock, Islam’s third holiest site, in 2000 under heavy police guard triggered the second Palestinian intifada (uprising). The conflict led to the deaths of thousands of Arabs and Jews and the two sides seemed locked in a spiral of violence.

Uzi Benziman, Mr Sharon’s biographer, said that yesterday’s attempt to break the Likud party in half was part of a pattern in Mr Sharon’s behaviour. “This is an ironic closing of the circle,” he said. “Again he is dismantling what he built . . . didn’t he do the same with the settlements?”

However, his biographer believes this will be his last political incarnation and that Mr Sharon’s about-turn is now “irreversible”.

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