Bush meets ailing Sharon's sons

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush met on Thursday with the sons of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, an old ally who has been in a coma since suffering a stroke two years ago.

"It was a small tribute to pay to a great man and a good friend, a comrade in arms, a tribute from one cowboy to another," Raanan Gissin, a former Sharon adviser, said about Bush's decision to see Omri and Gilad Sharon.

The brothers met Bush at the Jerusalem hotel where the president has been staying during a three-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank.

Omri Sharon, a former legislator, was sentenced in 2006 to nine months in prison for illegal fundraising for his father's 1999 Likud party leadership campaign.

The start of the term was delayed because of his father's ill health and he is appealing the sentence, saying his resignation from parliament was punishment enough.

While prime minister from 2001-2006, Sharon, who turns 80 next month, forged a warm relationship with Bush, coordinating a strategy that included shunning then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as an obstacle to peace.

Sharon, now in a long-term care facility near Tel Aviv, met Bush 13 times in the United States while prime minister and visited the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Gissin said Sharon, a former general, "played a significant role in shaping and forming (Bush's) opinions, views and actions", particularly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

(Reporting by Brenda Gazza; Editing by Stephen Weeks)