Obama leads world tributes as former Israeli premier Peres dies, aged 93
TRIBUTES have been paid to Shimon Peres, the Israeli politician who won the Nobel Peace Prize during his unprecedented seven-decade career, who has died aged 93.
Mr Peres suffered a major stroke two weeks ago that led to bleeding in his brain. He had been sedated and on a respirator during most of his time in hospital, as his condition worsened.
US president Barack Obama praised Mr Peres as a man whose commitment to Israel’s security and the pursuit of peace “was rooted in his own unshakeable moral foundation and unflagging optimism”.
Mr Obama added Mr Peres looked to the future “guided by a vision of the human dignity and progress that he knew people of goodwill could advance together”.
Former US president George HW Bush said he and his wife Barbara “join Shimon Peres’s countless admirers around the world in saluting his singular life of service – to the universal cause of freedom, to the timeless cause of Israel, to the noblest cause of peace”.
Mr Peres’s body will lie in state at the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, today, before a state funeral at the country’s national cemetery in Jerusalem tomorrow.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a special Cabinet meeting yesterday following the death, and a special committee has started preparing the arrangements for the funeral. Many international dignitaries are expected to attend.
Mr Peres was the elder statesman of Israeli politics, a former president and prime minister who was one of the country’s most admired leaders and the last surviving link to its founding fathers.
He was credited with leading the country through some of its most defining moments, from creating its nuclear arsenal in the 1950s, to withdrawing its troops from Lebanon and guiding a sceptical nation into peace talks with the Palestinians in the 1990s.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas also expressed his sadness over the death. He called Mr Peres a partner in reaching a “peace of the brave” with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.