TOM SEGEV : Shimon Peres: Not Just a Man of Peace
JERUSALEM — Shimon Peres,
who died Wednesday at 93, was laid to rest as an Israeli prince of
peace. Leaders from around the world came to Jerusalem to pay their
respects to Israel’s
eldest statesman, a defense minister, prime minister, president and
more, who ended his long life as a symbol of his country’s quest for
reconciliation with the Palestinians.
Mr.
Peres certainly would have liked to enter history as a peacemaker, but
that’s not how he should be remembered: Indeed, his greatest
contributions were to Israel’s military might and victories. Despite his
involvement in the Oslo peace process, which earned him a Nobel Peace
Prize in 1994, along with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the
Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, solving the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict was never his primary work.
A
close associate and deeply devoted admirer of David Ben-Gurion,
Israel’s founding father, Mr. Peres shared his mentor’s conviction that
there could be no real peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs,
at least not for several generations. As Ben-Gurion’s deputy minister of
defense, Mr. Peres also held part of the responsibility for the harsh
and often arbitrary restrictions that the military imposed on the
county’s Arab citizens, including extensive land confiscations.
He
was crucial to the development of Israel’s military industry, including
some of its most sophisticated weaponry. In the early 1950s, just a few
years after Israel declared independence, he concluded that Israel must
develop its own nuclear option. He established secret contacts with
France to obtain nuclear technology. The nuclear reactor that now sits
near the town of Dimona in the Negev Desert is largely thanks to these
efforts.
On
matters military and diplomatic alike, Mr. Peres was courageous and
imaginative. He was willing to consider and often to risk almost all
political, diplomatic and military options, regardless of how fantastic
and unrealistic they might be. In 1967, he sought to avoid the Six Day
War, anticipating heavy losses for the Israeli army. He reportedly
suggested that instead of going to war, Israel should detonate a
powerful and extremely noisy device that would scare Egypt, Jordan and
Syria out of their plan to attack Israel. He found no support for this
scheme, but had it worked it might have significantly altered the events
of the last 50 years — avoiding the Israeli occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza.
But
over the course of his political career, Mr. Peres participated in the
oppression of the Palestinians who have been living for nearly half a
century under Israeli occupation. In 1975, when he was defense minister,
Mr. Peres granted permission to one of the first groups of Israeli
settlers to remain in the West Bank. Later, he supported the
establishment of several other settlements, laying the first obstacles
to the so-called two-state solution.
Over
the years, Mr. Peres sent diplomatic feelers to Arab leaders, primarily
King Hussein of Jordan, who had been talking secretly with Israeli
leaders for decades. In an abortive agreement with the king, Mr. Peres
consented in 1987 to end the occupation of the West Bank and put it
under Jordanian rule. Later, Jordan and Israel concluded an official
peace agreement, while Mr. Peres was foreign minister. The Palestinian
issue remained unresolved. And in 1993, as foreign minister, Mr. Peres
signed in Oslo the agreement that led to an exuberant ceremony on the
White House lawn and gained Mr. Peres the joint Nobel Peace Prize. Oslo
faded away; the Palestinian issue remains unresolved.
The
rest of the world hailed the Oslo agreement as proof that the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be resolved. But within Israel it
was, and still is, controversial. The right called Mr. Peres a defeatist
for ceding some control of the West Bank, the left called him an
expansionist because the agreement didn’t end the occupation. Both sides
were not entirely wrong. In fact, Mr. Peres was trying to please
everyone, settlers and peace activists alike. That was the story line of
his political life.
Even
as a powerful politician, Mr. Peres remained an outsider. He was born
in Poland as Shimon Persky. He arrived in Palestine at age 11 and
immediately set out on a long and painful struggle to become a “New
Hebrew,” which the Zionist ideology sought to create in contrast to the
diaspora Jew: strong, masculine, upright, courageous and productive. Mr.
Peres lived for a while on a kibbutz. He assumed a Hebrew name but he
was never able to get rid of his Yiddish accent. And unlike Mr. Rabin
and other locally born members of the elite, he did not fight in the
1948 war for independence, something for which veterans looked down on
him.
Thus
there was something pathetic about Mr. Peres’s attempt to transform
himself into “a real Israeli.” For most of his life, he had to endure
widespread hatred from his people, and, even worse, mockery. Throughout
his career he gave ample reason to associate him with petty party
politics and sleazy intrigue. But in reality he was motivated not by a
lust for power or by greed, but by an outsider’s desperate quest for his
people’s love.
In
2005, Mr. Peres left the Labor Party, which had been his political
home, and joined a new party headed by Ariel Sharon, a former general
and the epitome of that admirable “New Jew.” The deal brought Mr. Peres
the presidency and, finally, the love of almost all Jewish Israelis. It
amounted to a biographical miracle. No other Israeli leader had attained
that much affection since the assassination of Mr. Rabin.
As
president, Mr. Peres was recast as an optimistic father figure, an
elder statesman who represented a country devoted to peace and justice.
It helped, of course, that the presidency is largely a ceremonial post
and Mr. Peres no longer constituted a political threat to anybody. And
because he was viewed as a champion of peace, few Israelis resented his
objection to proposals to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, preferring
negotiations.
It
was ironic that Mr. Peres gained in popularity at a time when Israel
was losing many of its friends in the world. He remains perhaps the last
Israeli many in the rest of the world can still admire as they once
admired his country. He died at a time of apparent transition. Not long
from now, Israel may once again have to face crucial and painful
decisions regarding its future as a Jewish and democratic country. These
decisions will require a truly great leader, someone who, unlike Mr.
Peres, demands his people’s compliance, not their love.
Continue reading the main story
In Israel, the late president is best known for his contributions to the military, not for the Oslo agreement.
nytimes.com|Di Tom Segev
Commenti
Posta un commento