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Peres shows U.S. President Bill Clinton how to write his first name in Hebrew
during the signing of an anti-terrorism cooperation agreement at the White
House, April 1996.
“Pessimistic and optimistic people end up
the same way, so why not be an optimist?”
decisive role in Israel becoming a nuclear
power. During the course of a politi-
cal career that spanned almost seven
decades, Peres held numerous cabinet
positions, including prime minister —
once in a unique, shared rotation with
Yitzhak Shamir, and for seven months
following the death of Rabin in 1995.
The Peres-Rabin relationship was
longstanding and complex. Rabin was a
military hero and introvert; Peres, though
a defense minister, never served in the
Israel Defense Forces and was far more
outgoing. Like other political contempo-
raries, Rabin accused Peres of being self-
centered and dishonest, taking credit for
the accomplishments of others. But the
two men grew close, serving together in
the early 1990s, with Rabin prime min-
ister and Peres the foreign minister who
helped negotiate the Oslo deal.
Peres mourned Rabin’s death, and
though he could have held elections soon
after that traumatic event, and no doubt
would have won, he chose to wait so as
not to appear to be riding an emotional
national wave of sympathy for their
Labor Party and its peace efforts. That
strategy backfired, though, when a dead-
ly round of suicide bus bombings lead-
ing up to the national elections in 1996
found Israelis choosing the more hawkish
Benjamin Netanyahu as their leader.
Perhaps of all the posts Peres held
in his remarkable career, the most fit-
ting and successful was as president, a
non-political office that allowed him to
express his views on an international
platform. He came to symbolize Israel as
Start-Up Nation, a leading advocate of
creativity and brain power when natural
resources were lacking. His enthusiasm
and energy never flagged, and his opti-
mistic nature never waned.
“Concentrate all efforts on the future,”
he said, at 88, at one of his conferences.
“You are as young as your dreams …. Let
the past rest quietly.”
One image we will remember with a
smile is the final scene of a clever, cre-
ative and humorous six-minute video
Peres’ granddaughter made with him
two years ago as his outgoing presiden-
tial message — rather than “a book no
one would read,” she told us at the time.
It features Peres job-hunting after
retiring from the presidency, with short
scenes of him as a gas station attendant,
supermarket clerk and pizza delivery
man — delivering lines that sum up
his career and philosophy. In the last
scene, he parachutes from a plane with a
frightened young man, telling him, “The
future belongs to those who dare.”
Shimon Peres was a leader who dared
to dream big and, like the country he
loved, he helped many dreams become
reality.
May his memory be for a blessing.
*
To see the video, go to bit.ly/2ddTySJ.
This editorial is from New York Jewish Week.
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