He was finished. In the early 1980s, when I first met Ariel Sharon, he was a once-great general who was widely blamed for Israel’s failed war in Lebanon and for the slaughter of Palestinian refugees by Christian militias in the Sabra and Shattila camps outside Beirut. An Israeli investigating committee found him “indirectly” responsible for the massacres and forced his resignation as minister of defense. He had become virtually a pariah – banned even from such mundane affairs as the July Fourth cocktail party hosted by the U.S. ambassador.

In his mind, he was still a defender of Israel, but Israel did not want him. It was in America, as it turned out, that he found his chance for vindication. In 1984 Sharon sued Time magazine for libel: The magazine had written that he was directly involved in the Sabra and Shattila massacres. As he and his devoted wife, Lily, trudged daily to the courthouse in New York’s Foley Square, the Israeli press corps saw what we American journalists failed to grasp – that this was much more than just a libel trial: If Sharon emerged victorious, it would be the first step in his political comeback.

One day during a break in the trial I was interviewing him in a backroom of the courthouse. Suddenly, he began to sing a little song. He translated the Hebrew lyrics for me: “All the world is a very narrow bridge, and the important thing is not to be afraid to fall.” Sharon looked me in the eye. “I’m not afraid to say what I think,” he said, “or to fight for what I believe.”

He won his fight in the New York courthouse, and, little by little, he began working his way back through the labyrinth of Israeli politics as only he could. He was both charming and secretive, steely and blessed with a politician’s encyclopedic memory for personal details. He was also a man of enormous appetites. He loved good food and good gossip – lots of both. He loved his family – Lily, who died in 2000, and his two sons, Omri and Gilad, and his grandchildren. After Lily was gone, he was lonely, and he talked politics and personalities on the phone late at night with those he trusted.

The year of the victory over Time, Sharon became the architect of a national unity government with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir as rotating prime ministers. Sharon took on the job of minister of housing and construction, and in that post and others he became the father of the settlement movement, establishing Jewish communities all over the West Bank.

Sharon drove me around the West Bank one day. As we lunched under an olive tree, he spread out his maps and explained why Jews should be able to live anywhere in “Greater Israel,” as he and others called it. This was in fact a little ritual he conducted for anyone who would listen, but it was not just for show or for persuasion – it came from his heart.

The story of Israel in the 1990s was one of failed peace overtures. Sharon watched and waited, serving in different governments and eventually coming to head the Likud Party. But his hour did not come until after he made a highly controversial visit to the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem in September 2000. The visit triggered riots, and, predictably, Sharon’s critics blamed him for inflaming the Palestinians. But intelligence officials were to conclude that the late Yasser Arafat and Co. had planned the violence.

In any event, as chaos spread, Sharon rose to prime minister in 2001. The pariah had become his nation’s leader. And it soon transpired that the country’s most famous hawk was making the transition to statesman – that he was actively pushing the peace process.

War – its horrors, not some romantic vision of its glamour – was never far from Sharon’s mind. In interview after interview, he explained to me that he wanted peace because he had been a warrior, and warriors knew things that mere politicians could not.

He spoke from deep personal experience. “I saw all the horrors of war,” he told me in an interview just after he became prime minister. “I participated in all the wars of Israel. In every battle I was in the hardest parts … I lost my best friends in battles, and I was seriously injured twice. I felt all those terrible pains in hospitals. I had to take decisions of life and death of others and of myself. Therefore, I believe that I understand the importance of peace better than the politicians who speak about peace but never had the experience that I had. … But peace is a serious deed. It’s not an election gimmick. And peace should provide security for the Jewish people.”

In power, Sharon showed that the charm could often trump the steeliness – or at least mask it long enough for him to forge both a consensus in Israel and a close relationship with the American government. One of the marks of great leadership is the capacity to undo what one has done if it can contribute to the greater good. Sharon had the courage to dismantle the very settlements he had built.

About a year and a half ago, I went to talk to Sharon at the farm he loved so. I asked him why he had taken the risks of turning on the settlers and daring to suggest unilateral disengagement – steps that could have ended not only his political career but his life. I had spoken with senior intelligence officials who spelled out the threats right-wing Israelis were making on the prime minister’s life.

His response: “I don’t worry about my life. Arabs have always wanted to act against me, but now the Jews are doing this. For me, it is a strange situation. As one who defended Jews all his life, I now have to be secured against Jews. But I am fully committed to the plan.”

There was a pause, then he continued: “I believe we have to find a solution to the situation here. The left cannot do it. The right is against it. I felt it was my responsibility to bring an answer to the problem.”

In his mid-70s, his body began to fail him. He had withdrawn from Gaza and abandoned the Likud Party he founded. Yet, against all conventional wisdom, Sharon looked poised to sweep to victory as head of his new Kadima party. After his first stroke – a mild one – a month ago, 91 percent of Israelis said that his health would not influence their vote in the upcoming election. Although he never spelled out the details of the settlement he had in mind, the Israeli people trusted him.

In the Bible, when the warrior Joshua becomes leader of Israel, God tells him: “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid.” Ariel Sharon – warrior and leader – always heeded those words. As he sang to me all those years go, he has never been afraid.