Shimon Peres

Shimon Peres שמעון פרס
9th President of Israel
Incumbent
Assumed office July 15, 2007
Preceded by	Moshe Katsav
8th Prime Minister of Israel
In office 4 November 1995 – 18 June 1996
Preceded by	Yitzhak Rabin
Succeeded by	Benjamin Netanyahu
In office 14 September 1984 – 20 October 1986
Preceded by	Yitzhak Shamir
Succeeded by	Yitzhak Shamir
Personal details
Born	(1923-08-02) August 2, 1923 Wiśniewo, Poland
Nationality	Israeli
Political party	Kadima (formerly Labor)
Spouse	Sonya Peres
In 1977, his term as Prime Minister was unofficial.

(Hebrew: שמעון פרס, born Szymon Perski, Russian: Семён Перский, on August 2, 1923 in eastern Poland) is the 9th President of the State of Israel. He is a senior Israeli statesman with a political career spanning more than 65 years. He joined the Knesset in November 1959 and, except for a three-month-long hiatus in early 2006, served continuously until June 13 2007, the day he was elected President of Israel.

Shimon Peres was Prime Minister of Israel three times (once as acting prime minister) and served in 12 Israeli cabinets. He has been Finance Minister, Foreign Minister, and Defence Minister. In the current Olmert government, he was Vice Premier of Israel and Minister for the Development of the Negev, Galilee and Regional Economy.

In 1994, Shimon Peres won the Nobel Peace Prize together with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat for the peace talks that produced the Oslo Accords. Peres participated in these talks as the Israeli Foreign Minister, under Prime Minister Rabin. During his career, he has represented five parties in the Knesset (Mapai, Rafi, the Alignment, Labour and Kadima), and has led two of them (the Alignment and Labour).

In 2007, Peres was nominated by Kadima to run in that year's presidential election. He was elected by the Knesset for the presidency on June 13, 2007 and was sworn into office on July 15, 2007 for a seven-year term.

Biography

Early life

Shimon Peres was born in Wiśniewo, Poland (now Višnieva, Belarus), to Yitzchak (1896-1962) and Sarah (b. 1905 nee Meltzer) Persky. Peres was raised speaking Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian. His father was a lumber merchant, and his mother taught Russian language and literature. He has a younger brother, Gershon.

Interviewed by Mishpacha, an Israeli magazine, Peres said his grandfather, Rabbi Tzvi Meltzer, studied at the Volozhin yeshiva and was a grandson of Rabbi Chaim Volozhin. This grandfather had a great impact on his life. "I grew up in my grandfather's home," Peres said. "He looked after my education. He taught me Talmud. It wasn't as easy as it sounds. I didn't come from an observant home. My parents were not Orthodox. But I was very religious. Once I found my parents listening to the radio on the Sabbath so I smashed it. But to my father's credit, let it be said, I received a blessing from the Chofetz Chaim in Radin when I was a child. My father took me to see him."

In 1934, Peres moved with his family to Palestine. He attended the Geula School in Tel Aviv and the Ben Shemen agricultural school. He lived on Kibbutz Geva for several years, and was one of the founders of Kibbutz Alumot. In 1941 he was elected Secretary of Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed, a Labor Zionist youth movement. In 1944, he returned to Kibbutz Alumot, where he worked as a dairy farmer, shepherd and kibbutz secretary.

In 1947, he joined the Haganah (predecessor of the Israeli Defense Forces). David Ben-Gurion made him responsible for personnel and arms purchases. In 1952, he was appointed Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Defense, and in 1953, at the age of 29, he became the youngest ever Director General of the Ministry of Defense. He was involved in arms purchase and establishing strategic alliances that were of great importance for the young state of Israel. Thanks to Peres' mediation, Israel acquired the advanced Dassault Mirage III French jet fighter, established the Dimona nuclear reactor and entered into a tri-national agreement with France and the United Kingdom during the 1956 Suez Crisis.

Family life

In 1945, Shimon Peres married Sonya (née Gelman), who has preferred to remain outside the public eye. They have three children: a daughter, Tzvia (Tziki) Walden-Peres, a linguist; and two sons, Yoni (born 1952), director of Village Veterinary Center, a veterinary hospital on the campus of Kfar Hayarok Agricultural School near Tel Aviv, and Chemi, chairman of Pitango Venture Capital, one of Israel’s largest venture capital funds. Peres has 8 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Sonya Peres was unable to attend the inauguration ceremony due to ill health.

Peres is a first cousin of actress Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perski).

Political milestones in the 1950s and 1960s

Shimon Peres talks to Donald Rumsfeld. Israeli Ambassador to the USA David Ivry (center) joined them in the talks.

Peres was first elected to the Knesset in the 1959 elections, as a member of the Mapai party. He was given the role of Deputy Defense Minister, which he fulfiled until 1965 when he was implicated in the Lavon affair with Moshe Dayan. Peres and Dayan left Mapai with David Ben-Gurion to form a new party, Rafi which reconciled with Mapai and joined the Alignment (a left-wing alliance) in 1968.

However, even his fellow party members were not overly fond of Peres. Moshe Sharett, late Israeli Prime Minister, wrote in his Personal Diary (1957): "I have stated that I totally and utterly reject [Shimon] Peres and consider his rise to prominence a malignant, immoral disgrace. I will rend my clothes in mourning for the State if I see him become a minister in the Israeli government."

Political milestones in the 1970s

In Government

In 1969, Peres was appointed Minister of Absorption and in 1970 he became the Minister of Transportation and Communications. In 1974, after a period as Information Minister, he was appointed Minister of Defense in the Yitzhak Rabin government having been Rabin's chief rival for the post of Prime Minister after Golda Meir resigned in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War. During this time, Peres continued to challenge Rabin for the chairmanship of the party, but in 1977, he again lost to Rabin in the party elections.

First time acting as Prime Minister

Peres succeeded Rabin as party leader prior to the 1977 elections when Rabin stepped down in the wake of a foreign currency scandal involving his wife. As Rabin could not legally resign from the transition government, he officially remained Prime Minister, while Peres became the unofficial acting Prime Minister. Peres led the Alignment to its first ever electoral defeat, when the Likud Party under Menachem Begin won sufficient seats to form a coalition that excluded the left. After only a month on top, Peres assumed the role of opposition leader.

Political milestones in the 1980s

In the Opposition

After turning back a comeback bid by Rabin in 1980 Peres led his party to another, narrower, loss in the 1981 elections.

Prime Minister for the first time

In 1984, the Alliance won more seats than any other party but failed to muster a majority of 61 mandates to form a leftist coalition. Therefore, the two parties agreed on an unusual "rotation" arrangement in which Peres would serve as Prime Minister and the Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir would be Foreign Minister.

A highlight of this time in office was a trip to Morocco to confer with King Hassan.

In rotation with Shamir

After two years, Peres and Shamir traded places. In 1986 he became foreign minister. In 1988, the Labor party led by Peres suffered another narrow defeat. He agreed to renew the coalition with the Likud, this time conceding the premiership to Shamir for the entire term. In the National Unity government formed in 1988-1990, Peres served as Vice Premier and Minister of Finance. He and the Alignment finally left the government in 1990, after a failed bid to form a narrow government based on a coalition of Labor, small leftist factions and Haredi parties.

Political milestones in the 1990s

Leader of the Opposition

From 1990, Peres led the opposition in the Knesset, until, in early 1992, he was defeated in the first primary elections of the new Israeli Labor Party (which had been formed by the consolidation of the Alignment into a single unitary party) by Yitzhak Rabin, whom he had replaced fifteen years earlier.

Foreign Minister and the Oslo Accords

Peres remained active in politics, however, serving as Rabin's foreign minister from 1992 and without Rabin's knowledge, began illegal secret negotiations with Yassir Arafat's PLO organization. When Rabin found out, he let them continue. The negotiations led to the Oslo Accords, which would win Peres, Rabin and Arafat the Nobel Peace Prize.

Prime Minister for the second time

After Rabin's assassination in 1995, Peres again became Prime Minister. During his term, Peres promoted the use of the Internet in Israel and created the first Web site for an Israeli prime minister. Peres was narrowly defeated by Benjamin Netanyahu in the first direct elections for Prime Minister in Israel's history in 1996.

With Barak

In 1997 he did not seek re-election as Labor Party leader and was replaced by Ehud Barak. Barak rebuffed Peres's attempt to secure the position of Party President and upon forming a government in 1999 appointed Peres to the minor post of minister for regional development. Peres played little role in the Barak government.

Political milestones in the 2000s

With Sharon and Olmert

In 2000 Peres ran for a seven-year term as Israel's President, in a ceremonial head of state position, had he won, as was expected, he would have been the first ex-Prime Minister to be elected President. He lost however, to Likud candidate Moshe Katsav.

Following Ehud Barak's defeat by Ariel Sharon in the 2001 direct election for Prime Minister, Peres made yet another comeback. He led Labor into a national unity government with Sharon's Likud Party and secured the post of foreign minister. The formal leadership of the party passed to Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, and in 2002 to Haifa Mayor Gen. Amram Mitzna. Peres was much criticized on the left for clinging to his position as foreign minister in a government that was not seen as advancing the peace process, despite his own dovish stance. He left office only when Labor resigned in advance of the 2003 elections. After the party under the leadership of Mitzna suffered a crushing defeat, Peres again emerged as interim leader. He led the party into coalition with Sharon once more at the end of 2004 when the latter's support of "disengagement" from Gaza presented a diplomatic program Labor could support.

Shimon Peres with Donald Rumsfeld

Peres won the chairmanship of the Labor Party in 2005, in advance of the 2006 general elections. As party leader, Peres favored pushing off the elections for as long as possible. He claimed that an early election would jeopardize both the September 2005 Gaza withdrawal plan and the standing of the party in a National Unity government with Sharon. However, the majority pushed for an earlier date, as younger members of the party, among them Ophir Pines-Paz and Isaac Herzog, overtook established leaders like Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Haim Ramon, in the party ballot to divide up government portfolios. It turned out that elections could not be held in June, as planned, when a scandal erupted over possible fraud in registering party members. The investigation of this scandal delayed elections until November 9 2005.

Irrespective of before or after the delay, Peres continually led in the polls, defying predictions that rivals would overtake him. His bitter exchanges with opponents began when former Prime Minister Barak began backing the holding of primaries early that year, as Amir Peretz and Haim Ramon, two staunch anti-Barak Knesset members vowed to support Peres at any cost to defeat Barak. In a bizarre change of events, Peretz soon declared his own candidacy, a move viewed by Peres as the greatest betrayal.

Though Peres continued to trade nasty barbs with Barak in the newspapers, his feud with Peretz soon superseded that, especially when Barak pulled out of the race in early October. One of Peretz's main charges against Peres was that he neglected socio-economic affairs as a member of the Sharon government, and did not fulfill his statement that Labor had joined the coalition with only the intent of seeing through the Gaza Withdrawal. Peres lost the leadership election with 40% to Peretz's 42.4%.

Joining Kadima

On November 30 2005 Peres announced that he was leaving the Labor Party to support Ariel Sharon and his new Kadima party. In the immediate aftermath of Sharon's debilitating stroke there was speculation that Peres might take over as leader of Kadima. Most senior Kadima leaders, however, were former members of Likud and indicated their support for Ehud Olmert as Sharon's successor.

Labor reportedly tried to woo Peres back to the fold. Peres announced, however, that he supported Olmert and would remain with Kadima. Media reports suggested that Ehud Olmert offered Peres the second slot on the Kadima list, but inferior cabinet positions to the ones that were reportedly offered to Tzipi Livni. Peres had previously announced his intention not to run in the March elections. Following Kadima's win in the 2006 general election, Peres was given the role of Vice Prime Minister and Minister for the Development of the Negev, Galilee and Regional Economy.

President of Israel

Until June 2007, Shimon Peres had never been elected to a public office. On June 13, 2007, Peres achieved his goal of being elected to a national office outright, when he was elected President by the Knesset. 58 of 120 members of the Knesset voted for him in the first round (whereas 38 voted for Reuven Rivlin, and 21 for Colette Avital). His opponents then backed Peres in the second round and 86 members of the Knesset voted in his favor, while 23 objected. He resigned from his role as a Member of the Knesset the same day, having been a member since November 1959 (except for a three month period in early 2006), the longest serving in Israeli political history.

Peres was sworn in as President on July 15.

Political views

Peres was at one time considered something of a hawk. He was a protégé of Ben-Gurion and Dayan and an early supporter of the West Bank settlers during the 1970s. However, after becoming the leader of his party his stance evolved. More recently he has been seen as a dove, and a strong supporter of the notion of peace through economic cooperation. While still opposed, like all mainstream Israeli leaders in the 1970s and early 1980s, to talks with the PLO, he distanced himself from settlers and spoke of the need for "territorial compromise" over the West Bank and Gaza. For a time he hoped that King Hussein of Jordan could be Israel's Arab negotiating partner rather than Yasser Arafat. Peres met secretly with Hussein in London in 1987 and reached a framework agreement with him, but this was rejected by Israel's then Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir. Shortly afterward the first intifada erupted, and whatever plausibility King Hussein had as a potential Israeli partner in resolving the fate of the West Bank evaporated. Subsequently, Peres gradually moved closer to support for talks with the PLO, although he avoided making an outright commitment to this policy until 1993.

Peres was perhaps more closely associated with the Oslo Accords than any other Israeli politician (Rabin included) with the possible exception of his own protégé, Yossi Beilin. He has remained an adamant supporter of the Oslo Accords and the Palestinian Authority since their inception despite the First Intifada and the Al-Aqsa Intifada. However, Peres supported Ariel Sharon's military policy of operating the Israeli Defence Forces to thwart suicide bombings.

Often, Peres acts as the informal "spokesman" of Israel (even when he is in the opposition) since he earned high prestige and respect among the international public opinion and diplomatic circles. Peres advocates Israel's security policy (military counter terror operations and the Israeli West Bank barrier) against international criticism and de-legitimation efforts from pro-Palestinian circles.

Books

Shimon Peres is the author of eleven books, including:

• The Next Step (1965)
• David's Sling (1970) (ISBN 0-297-00083-7)
• And Now Tomorrow (1978)
• From These Men: seven founders of the State of Israel (1979) (ISBN 0-671-61016-3)
• Entebbe Diary (1991) (ISBN 965-248-111-4)
• The New Middle East (1993) (ISBN 0-8050-3323-8)
• Battling for Peace: a memoir (1995) (ISBN 0-679-43617-0)
• For the Future of Israel (1998) (ISBN 0-8018-5928-X)
• The Imaginary Voyage : With Theodor Herzl in Israel (1999) (ISBN 1-55970-468-3)

Quotations

• "What, I'm a loser?" (Shimon Peres asks the Labor Party central committee, and they yelled back a resounding "YES!")
• "When you win a war, your people are united and applaud you. When you make peace, your people are doubtful and resentful."
• [To Ruth Matar, a Jerusalem resident who criticized him in American-accented Hebrew] "Go back where you came from." (Jerusalem Post International Edition, February 3 1996]
• "If you want to serve the future, don't be afraid to belong to a minority."
• "A godless man is not a human being."
• "I am totally uninterested in the past. If you wouldn't ask me I wouldn't talk about it. The past bores me. (Interview with Michael Kapel, Australia/Israel Review, June 6-June 26, 1997)
• "If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem but a fact that must be coped with."
• "Television has made dictatorship impossible but democracy unbearable."
• "An optimist and a pessimist die the same way; they only live differently. I prefer to live as an optimist" - interview with Benny Hinn on a TV program aired on March 22 2007
• "I have become totally tired of history, because I feel history is a long misunderstanding." (Wall St. Journal, September 30 1994)

References

Peres: Father of Israel defense ministry who never served in the military by Amiram Barkat (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtStEngPE.jhtml?itemNo=870789&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&title=%27Presidency%20rounds%20off%2066-year%20career%20%27&dyn_server=172.20.5.5)

External links

• Shimon Peres - Knesset page
• Peres Center for Peace website
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Shimon Peres - full access article
• Shimon Peres biography at the The Nobel Prize Foundation
• Biography of Shimon Peres at Zionism and Israel Information Center Biography Page
• Shimon Peres biography at the Jewish Virtual Library
• BBC - Sharon seals new Israel coalition
• Peres's metaphysical propensity to lose by Matthew Wagner, published in the Jerusalem Post, November 10 2005.
• Former Labor Leader Shimon Peres Heading For Sharon's new party - recorded Report from IsraCast.
• Shimon Peres speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations about the Israel/Lebanon conflict on July 31 2006
• Shimon Peres speaks at Cornell University - "A Conversation with Shimon Peres"

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