Was Shimon Peres a Man of Peace?
by Elhanan Miller
He was my private political instructor for four years, day and night. He didn’t act like a teacher, but I learned a lot from him, about what to do, but also what not to do. I was very young, and he was already Shimon Peres. We parted with mixed feelings.
He was the last of the old-time Israelis. What’s “Israeli” to you? Once it was Shimon Peres. Now Miri Regev represents Israeliness much more than he does. But when Israel still wanted to be portrayed as a peace-seeking nation, it had Peres.
Peres and the Passing of Hope
By Roger Cohen
With the death of Shimon Peres and the passing of the last of the giants ofIsrael’s foundation a void fills the soul — in part because the peace of which he dreamed has proved elusive, in part because the search for Israeli-Palestinian compromise has reached a low point of repetitive sterility, but above all because statesmanship has now given way among the leaders of Israel to barren tactical maneuver.
Think what you will of Peres — and he was an early supporter during the 1970s of settlements in the West Bank as well as a politician who never won a clear mandate from Israelis to be their leader — he was a man of restless creativity. He thought big about Middle Eastern peace. He dreamed big of prosperity allied to security for Israelis and Palestinians. He lived big, unrequited to the end.
The Butcher of Qana: Shimon Peres Was No Peacemaker
by ROBERT FISK
When the world heard that Shimon Peres had died, it shouted “Peacemaker!” But when I heard that Peres was dead, I thought of blood and fire and slaughter.
I saw the results: babies torn apart, shrieking refugees, smouldering bodies. It was a place called Qana and most of the 106 bodies – half of them children – now lie beneath the UN camp where they were torn to pieces by Israeli shells in 1996. I had been on a UN aid convoy just outside the south Lebanese village. Those shells swished right over our heads and into the refugees packed below us. It lasted for 17 minutes.
Shimon Peres, standing for election as Israel’s prime minister – a post he inherited when his predecessor Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated – decided to increase his military credentials before polling day by assaulting Lebanon. The joint Nobel Peace Prize holder used as an excuse the firing of Katyusha rockets over the Lebanese border by theHezbollah. In fact, their rockets were retaliation for the killing of a small Lebanese boy by a booby-trap bomb they suspected had been left by an Israeli patrol. It mattered not.
Shimon Peres: Long legacy of Israel’s elder statesman
By Kevin Connolly
Shimon Peres was the last of the generation of politicians who founded Israel in 1948 to leave the public stage.
But even though his life of public service stretched over 70 years, it is not difficult to pick out the highlight.
In 1993 he was one of the group of politicians including Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin who signed the Oslo Accords – Israel’s first peace deal with the Palestinians.
It was not to live up to its early promise – but in those optimistic days no-one articulated that promise better than he did.
“We live in an ancient land,” he told a watching world at a signing ceremony on the White House lawn.
Arab Media Remembers Shimon Peres as War Criminal, Settlement Mastermind
By Elhanan Miller
While Israeli and international media remember Shimon Peres as the architect of the Oslo Peace Process and Israel’s foremost statesman, Arab coverage of the former president’s death on Wednesday was largely negative, describing him as a war criminal, a key contributor to the settlement project, and the founder of Israel’s security industry.
The former leader’s death received little coverage in Arabic media. Since the announcement of his passing on Wednesday morning came after most newspapers went to print, much of the commentary on his legacy appeared on news websites and on social media.
