Palestinian leadership, society reflect on Peres

In light of Shimon Peres’s grave condition, Palestinian political and civilian leaders reflected on one of Israel’s most famed personalities.

Ahmad Majdalani, a top adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told The Jerusalem Post the Palestinian leadership wishes Peres “a speedy recovery.”

Majdalani, who also is a member of the PLO Executive Committee, said Peres is a man of peace. “He undertook great efforts to make peace,” he said. “When I met with him, it was clear that he was ready to make peace.”

Another top Palestinian official, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, told the Post Peres’s words never matched his deeds.

“I think he talked more than anyone else about peace, but ultimately he did nothing,” the official said. “In 1996, he asked us to revoke the PLO Charter to help him get elected, and then he went and bombed Qana [Lebanon] to prove he was just as [much a] Likudnik as anyone else. Frankly, his standing in Israel and the international community are not founded on solid grounds.”

Peres served as prime minister for six months following the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, before losing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the 1996 elections.

Ashraf al-Ajrami, a former PA minister of prisoner affairs, told the Post Peres is a man of peace but also not brazen enough to achieve it.

“He is a man of peace and he believes in peace, but he was not able to take bold decisions to make peace,” he said. “When he was prime minister in 1996, he could have turned the Oslo Accords into a complete agreement, but unfortunately he hesitated.”

Sam Bahour, a prominent Palestinian businessman and intellectual, told the Post portraying Peres as a man of peace is not accurate.

“I see him in terms of his military background and as a founder of the entire settlement enterprise, which is not only a stumbling block in front of us, but it could undo the two-state paradigm,” he said. “Although he may have woken up later in his life trying to reach out to the Palestinian side, he never crossed the line to meet the bare minimum of what the Palestinians require to move forward.”

Hamas official Salah Bardawil wrote on Twitter: “Shimon Peres is saying farewell to the world that he corrupted with the blood of the children of Qana and Gaza. Everywhere he wore his cloak of peace but hid a dagger of treachery under it.”