BROOKE GLADSTONE: Just to reiterate, as of this recording, Ariel Sharon is still in the hospital after a seven-hour operation on his brain. Meanwhile, in the Israeli media there's a growing acceptance of the fact that he will probably never return to public life. Amotz Asa-El is a senior commentator for the Jerusalem Post. As he reviewed Sharon's relationship with the media on Thursday, he reflected on how his own opinion of the man had changed dramatically over the years.

AMOTZ ASA-EL: In 1982, back home, after having been enlisted as a soldier, I took part in demonstrations that demanded his removal. He represented many things that I found extremely dangerous. And then decades later, I found him suddenly implementing policies which I supported. Eventually, I came to agree with almost his every move.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Sharon's public life is almost as long as the life of Israel. How would you characterize his changing image?

AMOTZ ASA-EL: I would say he began as a Tarzan and later developed into a Santa Claus type of grandfather figure. Initially in the '50s, he was celebrated and glorified because he addressed a pressing need. The country was extremely vulnerable and hundreds of people were being killed by terrorists. A military response to this situation was imperative. And Israel was very young and its military very embryonic, and it lacked such a response until Ariel Sharon, well before he turned 30, offered that response with a very small but extremely elite unit that he created, trained and shaped.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: In his early days as a politician, he was instrumental in taking Israel to war with Lebanon, which split Israeli public opinion. I guess Tarzan became a darker and darker character at that point?

AMOTZ ASA-EL: Ever since the Lebanon war in general and the massacres in Sabra and Shatila in particular- [OVERTALK]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Sabra and Shatila were refugee camps.

AMOTZ ASA-EL: Yes. He is often depicted as a Dracula - I don't mean metaphorically - I mean, there really were frequently caricatures worldwide which depicted him as a bloodthirsty murderer. For most of the leading opinion-makers, the senior columnists in the Israeli media, he became a political pariah and a journalistic anathema.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So then how did he transform himself politically and through the media?

AMOTZ ASA-EL: Two things happened. The first was done not by him but by Yasir Arafat. Yasir Arafat imposed on Israel such a vicious terror war that people, when they still perceived Sharon as a man of war, they suddenly said, this man of war is what we need now.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: By terror war, you're referring to the second Intifada?

AMOTZ ASA-EL: I'm referring to all of the violence that followed the Camp David summit of summer 2000. This is why he was elected in the first place. People forget that. He was elected not in order to make peace but in order to win a war, which he did.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: You said there were two things that happened.

AMOTZ ASA-EL: The second, of course, was the disengagement.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: To disengage - [OVERTALK]

AMOTZ ASA-EL: From Gaza.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: - from Gaza.

AMOTZ ASA-EL: Yeah, which was already the latter part of his premiership. He was seasoned. He knew exactly what he wanted to accomplish with the media, and he did that. When he decided to launch the disengagement plan, he invited to his ranch one particular columnist, the most veteran columnist for the leading daily Ha'aretz. His name is Joel Marcus. He invited him to his ranch and shared with him his plan, and this is how the scoop came out, completely engineered by Sharon. Sharon knew that this way he's immediately winning over the support of the leading daily. And he accomplished that.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I wonder if you could describe to me the everyday working relationship between the media and politicians in Israel.

AMOTZ ASA-EL: It's a very intimate relationship. Many journalists hobnob on a regular daily basis with senior politicians. They share the same cafeteria in the Israeli Parliament. They have each other's cell phones. As executive editor of the Jerusalem Post, I would get phone calls from Ehud Olmert personally, at the time as Sharon's deputy, in order to discuss this or that item that appeared that morning in our paper. I think it's inconceivable in America that, say, Dick Cheney would call somebody in this or that paper and discuss what's in the morning's coverage. In Israel, it's done that way.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And, in fact, as you say, in America, in Washington, that would be unheard of. But journalists, many of them, would pay dearly for that kind of access. And sometimes when journalists get something approaching that kind of access in Washington, they're accused of pulling their punches. Does that happen in Israel?

AMOTZ ASA-EL: No. That is not what this is about. Israeli journalists have brought down one President and several Prime Ministers. Yitzhak Rabin, in his first term in office, was made to resign, and this was done by a journalist who had an intimate relationship with him as Prime Minister.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I wonder if, when the obituaries are written, whether we'll recognize the same man from newspaper to newspaper? Will he in one paper be regarded as a potential bringer of peace and in another newspaper as a betrayer of his people?

AMOTZ ASA-EL: No. I don't think anyone will portray him as a traitor. There will, however, be people who will claim that the damage he leaves behind him is greater than the benefits. I personally disagree with that and, in fact, helped lead the Jerusalem Post's own attitude towards the conflict with the Palestinians from what a decade ago was a relatively right-wing position into a centrist position that wholeheartedly supported Sharon's disengagement plan. But I do realize while these are my views, who knows? Maybe a generation from now, history will prove me wrong.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: All right. Amotz, thank you very much.

AMOTZ ASA-EL: Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Amotz Asa-El is senior commentator for the Jerusalem Post.

BOB GARFIELD: Coming up, good news travels fast in mining country. Bad news arrives past deadline. And a new leak case raises new questions.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media from NPR.