As Ariel Sharon departs the political stage, he leaves behind a debate over whether his five-year tenure as prime minister has brought peace between Israelis and Palestinians closer, or made it more remote.
Mr Sharon is being gradually brought out of a medically induced coma after suffering a massive stroke last week. He is expected to have suffered some cognitive damage that will make his return to office impossible. The acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, is expected to lead the country until the March 28 elections.
Beginning with his brutal cross-border army raids in the 1950s, through his leading of Israel's counter-attack against Egypt in the 1973 Middle East war, and continuing with his planting of settlements in occupied territory as a government minister from 1977 and the bloody and costly invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Ariel Sharon made history - for better or worse. But it is the import of his last major undertaking - the withdrawal of settlements from the Gaza Strip last summer - that is at the heart of the debate over his legacy.
Those who believe Mr Sharon made peace more likely see the unilateral Gaza withdrawal and dismantling of 21 settlements there as a historic step towards the Israeli concessions necessary for an agreement, namely withdrawal from Palestinian territories occupied during the 1967 Middle East war.
In domestic political terms, they see Mr Sharon as having dealt a devastating blow to the once far-reaching power of ideology in Israeli politics.
'In his last term, Sharon did something very big indeed,' said Israeli analyst Leslie Susser. 'He created a precedent of unilateral withdrawal which seems to be a possible way of reaching an accommodation in the future.'