Ariel Sharon responds to stimulus, son tells 'NY Times'

Gilad Sharon, set to release biography of father, says "he looks at me, moves fingers when I ask him to"; takes credit for Gaza disengagement plan.

By LAHAV HARKOV
ariel sharon_311 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
ariel sharon_311
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Former prime minister Ariel Sharon is responsive and gaining weight, according to his son Gilad Sharon.
“When he is awake, he looks at me and moves his fingers when I ask him to,” Gilad Sharon told The New York Times in an interview published on Thursday night. “I am sure he hears me.”
RELATED:Ariel Sharon's family to pay part of his medical costsOpinion: Missing Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon, 83, has been in a coma since his second stroke, in January 2006. (His first stroke took place the previous month.) Gilad Sharon has written a biography of his father, which is set to be released in Hebrew and English on Tuesday.
Gilad Sharon said that doctors encouraged him and his brother, former MK Omri Sharon, to let their father die after his second stroke. They refused, with Gilad writing that he dreamed that the medical staff would tell him there is no hope for Ariel Sharon, “but he stared at me with this look, with those green-gray eyes of his, and I knew I would never give up, and that I simply would not leave him.”
Gilad Sharon reportedly takes credit in the biography for the idea to “disengage” from the Gaza Strip.
He is very critical of current Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, according to the Times. He calls Netanyahu “not only subversive, but a coward.”
He quotes Ariel Sharon as having said to Netanyahu during the latter’s first term (1996-99) as prime minister: “A liar you were, and a liar you have remained,” after Netanyahu purportedly reneged on a promise to make Sharon finance minister.
Gilad Sharon joined Kadima, the party his father founded, in January of this year, but told the Times that he is unsure whether he will enter politics.