‘WE FIND HOPE IN HIS LEGACY’
World leaders gather for Peres funeral
• On a cloudless blue morning, an honour guard brought the flagdraped coffin of Shimon Peres to the Mount Herzl national cemetery Friday as 100 world leaders and dignitaries from 70 countries bid farewell to the former Israeli leader and Nobel laureate whose dream of a lasting peace with the Palestinians remains elusive.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who was the last to give a eulogy, said that the contribution made by Peres to Israel was “so fundamental, so pervasive, it can sometimes be overlooked.”
A younger generation will “probably remember him for a peace process that never reached its end,” Obama said, noting that critics on the left wanted Peres to acknowledge Israel’s failings, while those on the right believed he “refused to see the true wickedness of the world and called him naive.”
“I don’t think he was naive. He understood from hardearned experience that true security comes from making peace with your neighbours,” he said, comparing Peres to former South African president Nelson Mandela. “He believed that the Zionist idea was best protected when the Palestinians have a state of their own.”
Both Obama and Israeli novelist Amos Oz sought to push forward Peres’s goal of an Israel living side by side in peace and security with a Palestinian nation. Both men spoke of the need for a twostate solution and urged current Israeli leaders to fulfil Peres’s vision for the region, even after almost 50 years of military occupation.
Former president Bill Clinton praised Peres as a leader
TRUE SECURITY COMES FROM MAKING PEACE WITH YOUR NEIGHBOURS.
who experienced “crushing setbacks” — in politics, in his efforts for peace — and woke up “to seize the possibilities of each new day.”
Clinton knew Peres intimately over a quarter-century. Alongside former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the four of them hammered out the details of the Oslo Accords, the frame that launched the now-stalled peace process. Peres, Arafat and Rabin shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.
Clinton said Peres started life as Israel’s best student, became its best teacher “and ended his life as its greatest dreamer.”
The former U.S. president said it is not easy to move past defeat. “It must have been hard for him to do this,” he said. “First he had to master his own demons, forgive himself for his own mistakes and get over his own disappointments.”
As the mourners began to take their seats, there was one moment of surprising diplomacy when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met and shook hands.
“Long time, long time,” Abbas was quoted as saying to Netanyahu. The Israeli leader responded: “It’s something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of us.”
The two men, despite nine months of peace talks in 2014, rarely meet face to face. When they do appear on the same world stage, they rarely reach out to the other, maintaining instead a frosty distance. Their last direct encounter was last year.
Netanyahu gave his eulogy in a mixture of Hebrew and English, and said Peres “soared to incredible heights. He was a great man of Israel and a great man of the world. We find hope in his legacy, as does the world.”
“There is no secret that we were political rivals, but over the years we became good friends,” Netanyahu added. “Shimon and I disagreed about many things but that never overshadowed many warm discussions. Our friendship deepened with every meeting. In our discussions of a fundamental issue, security versus peace, Shimon told me: ‘Bibi, peace is the true security. If there will be peace, there will be security.’ I told him security is essential for achieving peace and maintaining it.”
The state funeral for Peres is one of the largest in Israel since the 1995 burial of Rabin, the prime minister who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist who opposed the efforts of Rabin and Peres to make peace with the Palestinians.
Peres was buried beside Rabin.
Peres, the former prime minister and president, died at 93 at a Tel Aviv hospital before dawn Wednesday from complications of a massive stroke suffered two weeks earlier. Until the stroke earlier this month, Peres was keeping a full schedule, meeting with visiting U.S. senators, schoolchildren and high-tech innovators. He was still enjoying the occasional glass of wine and working on a book.
From the Arab world, Jordan sent its deputy prime minister and former chief peace negotiator Jawad Anani. Jordan’s King Abdullah II sent a note of condolences, but no member of the royal family attended. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry came, but not the president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
The sombre day also became a working event of sorts for world leaders. Netanyahu held a series of diplomatic meetings, including with Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to Netanyahu’s office.