Any other Middle Eastern leader who survived eight years in a coma would have been the butt of every cartoonist in the world. Hafez el-Assad would have appeared in his death bed, ordering his son to commit massacres; Khomeini would have been pictured demanding more executions as his life was endlessly prolonged. But of Sharon – the butcher of Sabra and Shatila for almost every Palestinian – there has been an almost sacred silence.

Cursed in life as a killer by quite a few Israeli soldiers as well as by the Arab world – which has proved pretty efficient at slaughtering its own people these past few years – Sharon was respected in his eight years of near-death, no sacrilegious cartoons to damage his reputation; and he will, be assured, receive the funeral of a hero and a peacemaker.

Thus do we remake history. How speedily did toady journalists in Washington and New York patch up this brutal man's image. After sending his army's pet Lebanese militia into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982, where they massacred up to 1,700 Palestinians, Israel's own official enquiry announced that Sharon bore "personal" responsibility for the bloodbath.

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He it was who had led Israel's catastrophic invasion of Lebanon three months earlier, lying to his own prime minister that his forces would advance only a few miles across the frontier, then laying siege to Beirut – at a cost of around 17,000 lives. But by slowly re-ascending Israel's dangerous political ladder, he emerged as prime minister, clearing Jewish settlements out of the Gaza Strip and thus, in the words of his own spokesman, putting any hope of a Palestinian state into "formaldehyde".

By the time of his political and mental death in 2006, Sharon – with the help of the 2001 crimes against humanity in the US and his successful but mendacious claim that Arafat backed bin Laden – had become, of all things, a peacemaker, while Arafat, who made more concessions to Israeli demands than any other Palestinian leader, was portrayed as a super-terrorist. The world forgot that Sharon had opposed the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, voted against a withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 1985, opposed Israel's participation in the 1991 Madrid peace conference – and the Knesset plenum vote on the Oslo agreement in 1993, abstained on a vote for a peace with Jordan the next year and voted against the Hebron agreement in 1997. Sharon condemned the manner of Israel's 2000 retreat from Lebanon and by 2002 had built 34 new illegal Jewish colonies on Arab land.

Quite a peacemaker! When an Israeli pilot bombed an apartment block in Gaza, killing nine small children as well as his Hamas target, Sharon described the "operation" as "a great success", and the Americans were silent. For he bamboozled his Western allies into the insane notion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was part of Bush's monstrous battle against "world terror", that Arafat was himself a bin Laden, and that the world's last colonial war was part of the cosmic clash of religious extremism.

Shape Created with Sketch. Ariel Sharon dies: Former Israeli Prime Minister's life in pictures Show all 12 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Ariel Sharon dies: Former Israeli Prime Minister's life in pictures 1/12 Ariel Sharon in 1956 Ariel Sharon writes a letter in the Sinai Peninsula during the 1956 war with Egypt in this handout file picture taken 30 October, 1956 and released by Israel's Defence Ministry. 2/12 Ariel Sharon in 1969 In 1969, Sharon was appointed Chief of Southern Command. He demolished thousands of homes in Gaza refugee camps to open roads for anti-terror patrols and deported hundreds of young men to Jordan and Lebanon. Getty 3/12 Ariel Sharon in 1981 Israeli then Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Ministers Avraham Burg, Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Shamir as they walk from their lodgings to the funeral of assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, held on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, 10 October 1981. 4/12 Ariel Sharon in 1982 Sharon planned and orchestrated Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, extending the war’s objectives far beyond those approved by the government. Getty 5/12 Ariel Sharon and his wife, 1982 Sharon laughs as his wife Lily stands at his side during an aerial display in an Israeli Air Force Base in this 15 July, 1982 file handout picture released by the Government Press Office. 6/12 Ariel Sharon in 1993 This picture from September 1993 shows Sharon with his sheep during a photo session on his farm in Shikmim, southern Israel. 7/12 Ariel Sharon in 1998 Sharon walks past Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat during the Middle East peace summit at the Wye River Conference centre 21 October, 1998. 8/12 Ariel Sharon in 1999 Sharon, centre, in 1999 as leader of the opposition Likud party, unfurls maps of Israeli settlements in the West Bank with right-wing Knesset member Hanan Porat, right, during a tour of the West Bank settlement of Har Harasha northwest of Ramallah. AP 9/12 Ariel Sharon in 2003 Former US President George W. Bush (C), Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (L) and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) waving for the photographers before their meeting on advancing the 'road map' for peace at the Middle East Summit in Aqaba, Jordan, 4 June 2003. 10/12 Ariel Sharon in 2005 Sharon (R) shakes hands with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas at a peace summit 8 February 2005 in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. 11/12 Ariel Sharon in 2005 Sharon is seen as he takes part in the lighting of a Hanukkah candle at his Jerusalem office 27 December, 2005 in Jerusalem, Israel. 12/12 Ariel Sharon The first Likud prime minister of Israel who was not reared on the muscular Zionism of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the doctrine of “both banks of the Jordan are ours” Getty 1/12 Ariel Sharon in 1956 Ariel Sharon writes a letter in the Sinai Peninsula during the 1956 war with Egypt in this handout file picture taken 30 October, 1956 and released by Israel's Defence Ministry. 2/12 Ariel Sharon in 1969 In 1969, Sharon was appointed Chief of Southern Command. He demolished thousands of homes in Gaza refugee camps to open roads for anti-terror patrols and deported hundreds of young men to Jordan and Lebanon. Getty 3/12 Ariel Sharon in 1981 Israeli then Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Ministers Avraham Burg, Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Shamir as they walk from their lodgings to the funeral of assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, held on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, 10 October 1981. 4/12 Ariel Sharon in 1982 Sharon planned and orchestrated Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, extending the war’s objectives far beyond those approved by the government. Getty 5/12 Ariel Sharon and his wife, 1982 Sharon laughs as his wife Lily stands at his side during an aerial display in an Israeli Air Force Base in this 15 July, 1982 file handout picture released by the Government Press Office. 6/12 Ariel Sharon in 1993 This picture from September 1993 shows Sharon with his sheep during a photo session on his farm in Shikmim, southern Israel. 7/12 Ariel Sharon in 1998 Sharon walks past Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat during the Middle East peace summit at the Wye River Conference centre 21 October, 1998. 8/12 Ariel Sharon in 1999 Sharon, centre, in 1999 as leader of the opposition Likud party, unfurls maps of Israeli settlements in the West Bank with right-wing Knesset member Hanan Porat, right, during a tour of the West Bank settlement of Har Harasha northwest of Ramallah. AP 9/12 Ariel Sharon in 2003 Former US President George W. Bush (C), Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (L) and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) waving for the photographers before their meeting on advancing the 'road map' for peace at the Middle East Summit in Aqaba, Jordan, 4 June 2003. 10/12 Ariel Sharon in 2005 Sharon (R) shakes hands with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas at a peace summit 8 February 2005 in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. 11/12 Ariel Sharon in 2005 Sharon is seen as he takes part in the lighting of a Hanukkah candle at his Jerusalem office 27 December, 2005 in Jerusalem, Israel. 12/12 Ariel Sharon The first Likud prime minister of Israel who was not reared on the muscular Zionism of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the doctrine of “both banks of the Jordan are ours” Getty

The final, ghastly – in other circumstances, hilarious – political response to Sharon's behaviour was George W Bush's contention that Ariel Sharon was "a man of peace". When he became prime minister, media profiles noted not Sharon's cruelty but his "pragmatism", recalling, over and over, that he was known as "the bulldozer".

And, of course, real bulldozers will go on clearing Arab land for Jewish colonies for years after Sharon's death, thus ensuring there will never – ever – be a Palestinian state.