Peres won Nobel Prize but peace stayed elusive
The Israeli elder statesman died on Wednesday at age 93 following a stroke
Shimon Peres, who died on Wednesday at the age of 93, never realized his vision of a new Middle East built upon a 1993 interim peace deal he helped shape with the Palestinians.
But Israel’s elder statesman won world acclaim and a Nobel Prize as a symbol of hope in a region long plagued by war fueled by deep religious and political divisions.
Peres was hospitalized following a stroke two weeks ago and his condition had improved before a sudden deterioration on Tuesday, doctors said. In announcing his passing, family members said that he did not suffer pain, and as a last act after death, he donated his corneas for transplant.
“Don’t forget to be daring and curious and to dream big,” Peres urged first-graders at the start of the school year in a posting on his Facebook page earlier this month. The comment seemed to sum up his own credo.
In a career spanning nearly seven decades, Peres, once a shepherd on a kibbutz, or communal farm, served in a dozen cabinets and twice as Labour Party prime minister, but he never won a general election outright in five tries from 1977 to 1996.
“I am a loser. I lost elections. But I am a winner — I served my people,” Peres, who held the largely ceremonial post of president from 20072014, once said in a speech.
He shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Israel’s late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser World leaders mourn, praise the man and his leadership
Current and former world leaders mourned the passing of Shimon Peres on Wednesday, praising him as a patriot, visionary statesman and man of principle who was deeply committed to pursuing peace in a region that has mostly eluded it.
President Barack Obama called Peres “the essence of Israel itself,” noting he had fought for Israel’s independence, worked its land and served Israel in virtually every government position, including three stints as prime minister.
“I’ll never forget how happy he was 23 years ago when he signed the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn, heralding a more hopeful era in Israeli-Palestinian relations,” former
Don’t forget to be daring and curious and to dream big.” Shimon Peres, who served in several political roles in Israel over the years and was hailed worldwide as a peacemaker. president Bill Clinton said in a statement. “He was a genius with a big heart who used his gifts to imagine a future of reconciliation not conflict.”
Peres, who served in the largely ceremonial role of president from 2007 to 2014, represented a moderate face of Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office in 2009. He remained active in trying to achieve peace.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair, who also worked as a Mideast peace envoy, said Peres’ “commitment to peace and his belief that it was in the interests of the country he adored marked him out as a visionary whose vision was never dimmed or displaced.”
Netanyahu issued a state- ment mourning the passing of Peres and said he would convene his Cabinet for a special session. After that, a special committee was to meet to prepare arrangements for a funeral that many international dignitaries and leaders from around the world are expected to attend.
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Peres “believed that the best way to serve the state of Israel and to deliver security to the Israeli people was through peace with the Palestinians. We can only honor his memory with a daily commitment to reconciliation, preserving and advancing his vision for a twostate solution.’’
Arafat for a 1993 accord that they and their successors failed to turn into a durable treaty.
When a far-right Jewish Israeli opposed to the peace deal assassinated Rabin in November 1995, the torch passed to Peres.
But Palestinian suicide bombings that killed dozens of Israelis and an aggressive campaign by Likud battered Peres’s rating and he lost the 1996 election to Benjamin Netanyahu by less than 30,000 votes.
In 2000, the failure of finalstatus peace talks with the Palestinians and the eruption of a Palestinian uprising rife with suicide bombings further damaged Israel’s left and Peres’s leadership prospects.
In 2005, Peres left the Labour Party to join then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s new party, Kadima, which had spearheaded Israel’s unilateral pullout from the Gaza Strip earlier that year. Following Kadima’s 2006 election victory, Peres served as viceprime minister.
Born in 1923 in what is now Belarus, Peres immigrated to British-ruled Palestine with his family a decade later.
Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion groomed him for leadership. He oversaw arms purchases and manpower in the Hagana, the Zionist fighting force, before Israel’s establishment.
Peres is widely seen as having gained nuclear capabili- ties for Israel by procuring the secret Dimona reactor from France while Defense Ministry director-general in the 1950s.
As defense minister he oversaw the dramatic 1976 Israeli rescue of hijacked Israelis at Entebbe airport in Uganda.
Peres was popular in his first term as prime minister in 1984-86 as part of a powersharing pact with Likud. He pulled troops back from Lebanon, normalized relations with Egypt and cut inflation from 445 percent a year to below 20 percent.
Despite his key role in building Israel’s defenses, Peres never gained broad popular trust in his security credentials as Rabin, his Labour rival and former army chief, or Sharon enjoyed.
Peres wrote several books including Entebbe Diary, The New Middle East and Battling for Peace. His wife, Sonia, died in 2011. He is survived by two sons and a daughter.