Ariel Sharon, a barrel-framed ex-general nicknamed the "The Bulldozer," realized a lifelong dream when he toppled incumbent Prime Minister Ehud Barak in the February 6 special election for Israeli prime minister.

Sharon won in a landslide, garnering 62.5 percent of the vote. But his win also came with the lowest Israeli voter turnout in recent history -- 62 percent in a nation that regularly brings out 80 percent of its registered voters.

Sharon spoke of forming a government of "national cohesion" after his election and, on February 27, the left-of-center Labor Party voted to join Sharon in forming a unity government.

But stark differences between the two parties have cast some doubt on the coalition's ability to come to a sound agreement with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

Sharon, for example, proposed giving the Palestinians only half as much land as Barak offered during the Camp David talks in July 1999. He says his plan would guarantee Israeli security, a key theme of Sharon's entire career in both the Israeli military and in Israeli politics.

When Sharon was foreign minister during Benjamin Netanyahu's tenure as prime minister, he refused to talk to or shake hands with Arafat at the Wye River talks in Maryland in 1998.

After his election, Sharon vowed that he would not sit down to talk with Arafat until the Palestinians stopped the violence that has rocked the area since last fall.

As minister of defense in 1982, Sharon orchestrated Israel's invasion of Lebanon, as Israeli forces sought to destroy Palestine Liberation Organization fighters in the region, which had staged several attacks into Israel and were blamed for trying to assassinate Israel’s ambassador to Great Britain.

An official Israeli inquiry found Sharon indirectly responsible for a massacre of several hundred Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps outside of Beirut, Lebanon, at the hands of Christian militiamen allied with Israel.

The inquiry said Sharon did nothing to stop the militias from entering the camps, despite fears the militiamen might seek to avenge the killing of their leader the previous day. Sharon was forced to resign.

Born in British-ruled Palestine in 1928, Sharon enlisted in the resistance at age 14 and gained attention early for his military leadership in Arab-Israeli conflicts.

He developed a reputation for military prowess and ruthlessness for his role as a commander in Israel's 1953 attack on Jordan, the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

As head of special commando Unit 101, he dealt harshly with Arab attacks from the West Bank and Gaza in the 1950s and with Palestinian guerrillas in Gaza in the 1970s.

Sharon climbed the rank structure, serving as a commander of the Infantry College, infantry and armor brigades, and as chief of staff of the Northern Command in 1964-65.

He resigned from the military in 1972, but when war returned the next year he was recalled, promoted to major general and put in command of an armored division. Israel celebrated when his forces captured Egypt's 3rd Army, effectively ending the war.

Sharon helped establish the Likud party in 1973 and was elected to the Knesset, but in 1974 he resigned to become Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's special security adviser.

He entered Menachem Begin's government in 1977 as minister of agriculture and chairman of the ministerial committee for settlements, where he encouraged the establishment of a network of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

He was elevated to revered status among the settlers, and he argued strongly against returning territories to Arab sovereignty.

Following Netanyahu's resignation as leader of the Likud in May 1999, Sharon took the reins of the party.

As Barak tried to reach an elusive peace deal with the Palestinians, Sharon was one of the prime minister's loudest critics. The Palestinians blame Sharon's visit to a disputed Jerusalem site on September 28, 2000, for sparking violent clashes and endangering the push for peace.

Sharon said he went to the site -- known as the Temple Mount by Jews and al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) by Muslims -- with a message of peace. He said the violence was a premeditated campaign orchestrated by the Palestinian Authority.

Sharon said he regretted the violence but denied any blame. In a letter to then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, he wrote, "I remain fully committed to achieving peace with all our Arab neighbors, including the Palestinians."

CNN Senior International Correspondent Richard Blystone and Reuters contributed to this report.