Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres (/ʃiːˌmoʊn ˈpɛrɛs, -ɛz/ shee-MOHN PERR-ess, -ez;[1][2][3] Hebrew: שמעון פרס [ʃiˌmon ˈpeʁes] ⓘ; born Szymon Perski, Polish: [ˈʂɨmɔn ˈpɛrskʲi]; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician who served as the eighth prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the ninth president of Israel from 2007 to 2014. He was a member of twelve cabinets and represented five political parties in a political career spanning 70 years.[4] Peres was elected to the Knesset in November 1959 and except for a three-month-long interregnum in early 2006, served as a member of the Knesset continuously until he was elected president in 2007. Serving in the Knesset for 48 years (with the first uninterrupted stretch lasting more than 46 years), Peres is the longest serving member in the Knesset's history. At the time of his retirement from politics in 2014, he was the world's oldest head of state and was considered the last link to Israel's founding generation.[5]
Shimon Peres
Benjamin Netanyahu
Yitzhak Shamir
Yitzhak Rabin
Foreign Affairs
Defense
Foreign Affairs
2 August 1923
Wiszniew, Nowogródek Voivodeship, Poland (now Vishnyeva, Minsk Region, Belarus)
28 September 2016 (aged 93)
Ramat Gan, Israel
Mount Herzl, Jerusalem
Israeli
Alignment (1965–1991)
Lauren Bacall (cousin)
Uzi Peres (nephew)
Nobel Peace Prize (1994)
Israel
From a young age, he was renowned for his oratorical brilliance, and was chosen as a protégé by David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding father.[6] He began his political career in the late 1940s, holding several diplomatic and military positions during and directly after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. His first high-level government position was as deputy director general of defense in 1952 which he attained at the age of 28, and director general from 1953 until 1959.[7] In 1956, he took part in the historic negotiations on the Protocol of Sèvres,[8] which was described by British Prime Minister Anthony Eden as the "highest form of statesmanship".[9] In 1963, he held negotiations with U.S. President John F. Kennedy, which resulted in the sale of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel, the first sale of U.S. military equipment to Israel.[10] Peres represented Mapai, Rafi, the Alignment, Labor and Kadima in the Knesset, and led Alignment and Labor.[11]
Peres first succeeded Yitzhak Rabin as acting prime minister briefly during 1977, before becoming prime minister from 1984 to 1986. As foreign minister under Prime Minister Rabin, Peres engineered the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty,[12] and won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize together with Rabin and Yasser Arafat for the Oslo Accords peace talks with the Palestinian leadership.[7] In 1996, he founded the Peres Center for Peace, which has the aim of "promot[ing] lasting peace and advancement in the Middle East by fostering tolerance, economic and technological development, cooperation and well-being."[13] After suffering a stroke, Peres died in 2016 near Tel Aviv.[14][15]
Unofficial acting premiership (1977)
On 7 April 1977, Prime Minister Rabin announced that, in the wake of a foreign currency scandal involving his wife, he would be stepping down prior to the 1977 Knesset election.[64] Peres made himself a candidate to replace him as the new Labor Party leader. Initially, Foreign Minister Yigal Allon also made himself a candidate. However, Allon and Peres reached an agreement that Peres would appoint Allon to any ministerial position that Allon preferred in exchange from his withdrawal of his candidacy. Following Allon's withdrawal, the Labor Party leadership announced on 10 April 1977 that he had chosen to endorse Peres as the party's new leader. On 11 April 1977, the 815-member Central Committee of the party elected Peres by acclamation as the party's new leader.[61][65][66]
Rabin ended his active service as prime minister on 22 April 1977, and Peres became Israel's unofficial acting prime minister. The reason why Peres was not officially the holder of this office was that Rabin could not, under Israeli law, resign from his position as prime minister because the government was, at the time, a caretaker government.[38][67][68][69][70]
In his first election as party leader, Peres led Labor Party and the Alignment coalition to its first ever electoral defeat, and the result afforded the first-place Likud party (led by Menachem Begin) the ability to form a coalition that excluded the left. When the new Likud-led government was formed on 20 June 1977[71] Peres' time as the unofficial acting prime minister ended.
Labor in opposition (1977–1984)
Once the Likud-led government took power, Labor and the Alignment bloc entered the Knesset opposition for the first time in its history,[72] and Peres assumed the unofficial role of Knesset opposition leader.[53]
In 1978, Peres was elected vice president of Socialist International.[73] Through his role within the leadership of this organization, Peres befriended foreign politicians including Willy Brandt, Bruno Kreisky, members of the British Labour Party, and politicians from parts of Africa and Asia.[74]
After handily winning reelection as Labor Party leader in 1980 (defeating a challenge from Rabin, who was attempting a comeback to the leadership),[61] Peres led his party to another, narrower, loss in the 1981 elections.
Minister of Finance in a Likud-led grand coalition government (1988–1990)
In 1988 the Alignment, led by Peres, suffered another narrow defeat. This came despite the fact that polling in 1988 showed Peres to be the most popular politician in the nation.[84] Peres agreed to renew the grand coalition with the Likud, this time conceding the premiership to Shamir for the entire term. In the grand coalition unity government of 1988–90 (the twenty-third government of Israel), Peres served as minister of finance and also continued to be the designated acting prime minister of Israel.
Labor's return to the opposition (1990–1992)
"The dirty trick"
Peres and the Alignment finally left the government in 1990, after "the dirty trick" – a failed bid by Peres to form a narrow government based on a coalition of the Alignment, small leftist factions and ultra-orthodox parties.[85] Peres' hope had been to create a Labor-led government that would be focused on peace talks with Palestine. Likud had declined proposals by the United States for Israel and Palestine to initiate what would have been the first peace talks between the two sides. Peres' longtime intra-party rival, Yizhak Rabin, had opposed to overthrowing the Likud-led coalition government.[76] Peres succeeded in ending the government twenty-third government with a vote of no confidence.[75] However, Peres was subsequently unable to assemble enough Knesset partners to form a pro-peace talk government.[76] After two months, Shamir managed to form a Likud-led government with right-wing religious parties, establishing what was seen as the most conservative government coalition in the history of Israel up to that point.[75][76]
Defeat in the 1992 Labor Party leadership election
Peres led the opposition in the Knesset from 1990 until early 1992, when he was defeated by Yitzhak Rabin in the Israeli Labor Party leadership election, the first leadership election held since the party formally merged with the other parties of Alignment, and the first leadership election open to participation by the party's entire membership.[29][61] Peres remained active in politics, however.[29]
Subsequent Knesset career (1996–2007)
Labor in opposition (1996–1999)
Peres was narrowly defeated by Benjamin Netanyahu in the 1996 Israeli prime ministerial election. Not included in the new government, Labor became an opposition party again, once again placing Peres in the then-unofficial role of Knesset opposition leader.
In 1996, Peres founded the Peres Center for Peace, which has the aim of "promot[ing] lasting peace and advancement in the Middle East by fostering tolerance, economic and technological development, cooperation and well-being."[13]
Peres did not seek re-election as Labor Party leader in 1997[101] and was replaced by Ehud Barak that year.[102] Barak rebuffed Peres' attempt to secure the position of party president.[101]
Minister of Regional Cooperation in a Labor-led government (1999–2001)
Ehud Barak was elected prime minister and formed a Labor-lead government in 1999. Barak appointed Peres (who was seen as a political rival of the new prime minister) to the minor post of minister of regional cooperation.[101][103] The position was vaguely defined, being expected to be tasked with advancing economic and political ties between Israel and the Arab world.[104][103] The position also did not come with any government funding.[103] Peres accepted the relatively low-ranked position reluctantly.[104] For nearly all of time in this position, Peres was not given the ability to play a major role within the government.[105]
On 1 November 2000, amid the Second Intifada, Peres met in the Gaza Strip with Arafat on behalf of the Israeli government, and the two agreed to terms of a truce in the early hours of the next morning.[106][107][108][109][110]
After the resignation of Ezer Weizman, Peres ran in the 2000 Israeli presidential election, seeking to be elected by members of the Knesset to a seven-year term as Israel's president, a ceremonial head of state position which usually authorizes the selection of Prime Minister. However, he lost to Likud candidate Moshe Katsav. Katsav's victory was attributed in part to evidence that Peres planned to use the position to support the increasingly unpopular peace processes of the government of Ehud Barak.[111] Peres' defeat was considered a significant upset, as he had been thought to be heavily favored to win the Knesset vote.[112] The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times wrote that his defeat appeared to spell the end of Peres' long political career.[113]
There was consideration given later that year to Peres potentially seeking the premiership again. On 20 November 2000, amid polls showing him to be in a virtual-tie with Ariel Sharon, an aide of Peres told the media that he would run in the 2001 direct election for prime minister. Peres himself told lawmakers that he intended to run.[114] Despite this, Peres did not become a candidate.[115] In January 2001, there was some talk among Cabinet members that it would be best for Peres to be the candidate of the left.[105]
[116] However, this did not happen. In early January 2001, in a joint television appearance with the Barak that promoted the government's intent to work towards peace, Peres told the media that his own goal was, "not to become prime minister", but was instead, "to do the best for the state of Israel."[105]
Minister of Foreign Affairs in a Likud-led grand coalition government (2001–2002)
Following Ehud Barak's defeat by Ariel Sharon in the 2001 direct election for prime minister, Peres made yet another comeback. He helped with bringing Labor into a grand coalition unity government with Sharon's Likud (the Twenty-ninth government of Israel) and secured the post of foreign minister.[38] The formal leadership of Labor passed to Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, and in 2002 to Mayor of Haifa Amram Mitzna. Peres grew to be heavily criticized on the left for, who accused him of clinging to his position as foreign minister in a government that was not seen as advancing the peace process. Left critics accused Peres of not acting in accordance with his own dovish stance. Peres left his post as foreign minister when Labor left the unity government in advance of the 2003 Knesset election.[38] Labor's departure from the unity government had placed Labor in the opposition ahead of the 2003 Knesset election.
Interim Labor Party leader (2003–2005)
After the Labor Party suffered a crushing defeat in the 2003 Knesset election while under the leadership of Mitzna, Peres was made interim leader of the party on 19 June 2003.[117]
Places named after Peres
Following his death, it was announced that Israel's Negev nuclear reactor and atomic research center, that had been constructed in 1958, would be named after Peres. Netanyahu stated: "Shimon Peres worked hard to establish this important facility, a facility which has been very important for Israel's security for generations.."[177]
Shimon Peres is the author of 11 books, including: