Peace pioneer who won Nobel Prize
JERUSALEM — At every corner of Israel’s tumultuous history, Shimon Peres was there. He was a young aide to the nation’s founding fathers when the country declared independence in 1948, and he played a key role in turning Israel into a military power. He was part of the negotiations that sealed the first Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, garnering a Nobel Peace Prize. He was welcomed like royalty in world capitals.
But only at the end of a political career stretching more than 60 years did Peres get what he truly wanted: admiration from his own people. He died at 93 early Wednesday, a person close to him confirmed on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to discuss Peres’ health with the media.
Peres began a new chapter at age 83, assuming the nation’s presidency following a scandal that forced his predecessor to step down. The job cemented Peres’ transformation from down-and-dirty political operator to elder statesman.
“After such a long career, let me just say something: My appetite to manage is over. My inclination to dream and to envisage is greater,” Peres said in a July 15, 2007 interview, just before he became president.
He said he would not allow his age, or the constraints of a largely ceremonial office, to slow him down. “I’m not in a hurry to pass away,” Peres said. “The day will come that I shall not forget to pass away. But until then, I’m not going to waste my life.”
As president, Peres tirelessly jetted around the world to represent his country at conferences, ceremonies and international gatherings.
He was a fixture at the annual World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland, where he was treated like a rock star as the world’s rich and powerful listened to his every word on topics ranging from Mideast peace to nanotechnology to the wonders of the human brain.
It was his 1994 Nobel Prize that established Peres’ man-of-peace image. He shared the prize with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
As foreign minister, Peres secretly brokered the Oslo interim peace accords with the Palestinians, signed in 1993.
Accepting the Nobel award, he said that “war, as a method of conducting human affairs, is in its death throes, and the time has come to bury it.”