Farewell to a giant who oversaw the birth of a state, and always believed in a brighter future

THE world has lost a giant, Israel has lost an icon and I have lost a personal hero. Throughout my life and career Shimon Peres was a role model. He was the face of our country for decades and shone his face upon the world. Anyone tasked with representing the State of Israel and the Jewish people, if they take that responsibility seriously, emulates Peres – as a diplomat, leader and human being.

In all of my offices, over more than two decades, an image of Peres in action has taken pride of place on my wall. It is a photograph in which Peres, eyes fixed and determined, points his finger in Yasser Arafat’s face, at the moment the PLO leader revealed he was refusing to sign the maps of Jerusalem outlined in the Oslo Accords. On the one hand, it was an uncharacteristic gesture for Israel’s most celebrated peacenik. On the other, it captures him perfectly – a man whose biggest fight was the struggle to bring peace to his country and resolve its conflicts. He was tireless in pursuit of peace but tenacious in defence of Israel. I remember accompanying him to Oxford University during his 2008 UK visit.

In a sign of things to come on university campuses, he was repeatedly heckled by anti-Israel protesters. He paused, looked up to the gallery and spoke calmly but defiantly. “We do not need your permission to stay alive,” he said, to the applause of the majority of the audience.

He knew about survival. This was the last of Israel’s generation of leaders who oversaw the birth of our state, ensured it survived its infancy and enabled the rebirth of the Jewish people. Israel, Peres said, “used to be a question mark” but is now a strong country. He devoted his life to removing that question mark, from his work equipping our armed forces before, during and after Israel’s War of Independence, to his work at the ministry of defence and in every senior office he held in his career. “We are a peaceful people who can defend itself. We can and we will,” he said.

He, like all of his generation of Jews, well understood the historic necessity of Israel, having immigrated to the putative state from Vishniev, Poland, in 1934. Those from his town who did not make that journey were murdered by the Nazis. He learnt later how the Jews of Vishniev had been locked in their wooden synagogue and burnt alive, including his grandfather and mentor, Rabbi Zvi Meltzer.

His pride in Israel, however, was not based purely on our survival but on what we did with it. Even in his 90s, he approached life with the dynamism and energy of a far younger man – restless, searching, never satisfied.

“The Jews’ greatest contribution to history is dissatisfaction!” he said. “We’re a nation born to be discontented. Whatever exists, we believe, can be changed for the better.”

Shimon Peres’s journey has ended; Israel’s journey continues. May we carry his warmth, his “dissatisfaction” and his optimism for a better, more peaceful future with us on our way. Ron Prosor is Israel’s former Ambassador to the UN and the UK

‘He was tireless in the pursuit of peace, but tenacious in the defence of Israel’