Shimon Peres is laid to rest
stroke earlier this month, was hailed by speakers as the last leader from Israel’s founding generation, a visionary who built up Israel’s military power and eventually became its bestknown statesman — a leader who, despite numerous political setbacks, never stopped seeking to advance Israeli-Arab reconciliation.
They paid tribute to the boy from a Jewish town in Poland who immigrated to Palestine before his extended family was killed in the Nazi Holocaust and eventually served at the side of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion — launching a decades-long career in Israel’s slash-and-burn political system in which Mr. Peres was reviled by many Israelis as being too willing to compromise.
“It was no secret that Shimon and I were political enemies, but over the years we became close friends,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who handed Mr. Peres one of his painful defeats by narrowly defeating him in a parliamentary election in 1996.
Standing alongside his casket, Mr. Netanyahu recalled debating with Mr. Peres into the night after he had left partisan politics to become the country’s president, a mostly ceremonial post.
“Shimon claimed fervently, ‘Bibi, ‘shalom’ is the true security.’ I argued, ‘Shimon, in the Middle East security is a necessary condition for peace,’” he said. “I came to the conclusion that we were both right. In the stormy Middle East, peace will only be assured with constant demonstration of our power … but power is only a means.”
Mr. Obama, who was in the country for only a few hours, sat beside Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Peres’ son Nechemia during the ceremony. Wearing a black memorial ribbon and a yarmulke in deference to Jewish custom, the president recalled discussing books and history with Mr. Peres in the White House and striking up a chemistry despite their different backgrounds and ages.
“Our friendship was rooted in that I could see myself in his history and maybe he could see himself in mine,” Mr. Obama said.
In his eulogy, Mr. Obama, who was stymied for eight years in advancing a peace process in the Middle East — in part by skepticism in Israel about the peace talks with the Palestinians and also friction with Mr. Netanyahu — gently urged Israelis to continue Mr. Peres’ legacy of seeking reconciliation.
“I don’t believe he was naive ...” Mr. Obama said.