Peres’s legacy not all that great

Shimon Peres, who has just died, was born Szymon Perski in Wiszniew, Poland, in 1923 ( Israeli ex-president and Nobel laureate Shimon Peres dies, September 28).

He was the son of a timber merchant who, after migrating to Palestine in 1934, became, arguably, one of the most influential political figures of Middle Eastern affairs in the 20th century.

However, far from being a “man of peace”, he was the primary instigator of the establishment of Israel’s covert nuclear weapons facility in Dimona in the Negev desert which he fooled the United States government of president John F Kennedy into believing was for peaceful purposes.

Subsequently, he was reportedly the primary force in conducting clandestine negotiations with the hated apartheid government of South Africa to supply it with nuclear weapons.

The activities of Peres in making Israel a secret nuclear weapons state are considered largely responsible for the destabilisation of the Middle East from 1948 to the present day. Without such nefarious international activities, the world would almost certainly be an entirely different place today.

Peres was also a leading member of the government that instigated the policy of illegal settlements in the occupied territories that is now such an intentional obstacle to peace. These socalled “facts on the ground” for which he claimed responsibility are the legacy of a politician who ignored the human and civil rights of the majority indigenous population for over 70 years. Anthony Bellchambers, UK in Dubai now need to gain approval for property ads, September 28). I’ve learnt through hard experience that more often the lovely view and spacious living room shown in the pictures are usually of some other flat, and sometimes it’s a flat in a totally different development. Absolutely false advertising. Name withheld by request