Lecture
Philip Rubenstein
Tuesday 6.10.2026
Philip Rubenstein
Israel’s Prime Ministers, Part 9: The Road to Kadima
Tuesday 6.10.2026
How to watch
This lecture starts on 6 October at 7:00pm (UK).
Summary
Ariel Sharon (1928–2014) was unlike any of Israel’s previous prime ministers: a brilliant field commander, deeply controversial, doggedly independent, and notoriously unwilling to accept authority over him. Known as “The Bulldozer,” he drove the settlement project in the West Bank and Gaza. Yet as prime minister, he ordered Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and the dismantling of its settlements there. What changed—Sharon, or the world around him? This lecture follows Sharon’s journey from soldier to prime minister, and the path of his successor, Ehud Olmert—from Herut party stalwart and mayor of Jerusalem to advocate of an accommodation with the Palestinians.
Philip Rubenstein
Philip Rubenstein was director of the Parliamentary War Crimes Group, which, in the mid-to-late 1980s, campaigned to bring Nazi war criminals living in the UK to justice. Philip was also the founder-director of the Holocaust Educational Trust and played a role in getting the study of the Shoah onto the national school’s curriculum in the UK. These days, he works with family businesses, advising on governance and continuity from one generation to the next.