Shimon Peres, last surviving founding father of Israel, dies at 93

Shimon Peres, the elder statesman of Israeli politics and the last surviving link to its founding fathers, was long considered controversial, but became one of the country’s most admired leaders in his later years.

Shimon Peres, a former Israeli president and prime minister, whose life story mirrored that of the Jewish state and who was celebrated around the world as a Nobel prize-winning visionary who pushed his country toward peace, died early Wednesday. Peres was 93.

Peres’ condition worsened on Tuesday following a major stroke two weeks ago that led to bleeding in his brain. He was sedated and on a respirator during most of his hospitalization.

“Today with deep sorrow we bid farewell to our beloved father, the 9th president of Israel,” Peres’ son Chemi stated. “Our father’s legacy has always been to look to tomorrow. We were privileged to be part of his private family, but today we sense that the entire nation of Israel and the global community share this great loss. We share this pain together.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that he and his wife Sara “express deep personal sorrow” over Peres’ passing.

He said he will convene his Cabinet for a special session later in the day.

Schools in Israel dedicated the first hour of classes to focus on Peres’ life and achievements.

The Last of Israel’s Founding Fathers

Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is the elder statesman of Israeli politics, one of the country’s most admired leaders and the last surviving link to its founding fathers.

In an unprecedented seven-decade political career, Peres filled nearly every position in Israeli public life and was credited with leading the country through some of its most defining moments, from building its nuclear plant in the 1950s, to disentangling its troops from Lebanon and rescuing its economy from triple-digit inflation in the 1980s, to guiding a skeptical nation into peace talks with the Palestinians in the 1990s.

A protégé of Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion, Peres led the Defense Ministry in his 20s, the youngest Israeli to do so, and spearheaded the development of Israel’s nuclear program.

He was first elected to parliament in 1959 and later held every major Cabinet post — including defense, finance and foreign affairs — and served two brief stints as prime minister. His key role in the first Israeli-Palestinian peace accord earned him a Nobel Peace Prize and revered status as Israel’s then most recognizable figure abroad.

Whirlwind Political Career

Peres served as a Member of Knesset for 48 years, the longest term of service in the history of the Israeli Knesset.

And yet, for much of his political career he could not parlay his international prestige into success in Israeli politics, where he was branded by many as both a utopian dreamer and political schemer. His well-tailored, necktied appearance and swept-back gray hair seemed to separate him from his more informal countrymen. He suffered a string of electoral defeats: competing in five general elections seeking the prime minister’s spot, he lost four and tied one.

He finally secured the public adoration that had long eluded him when he has chosen by parliament to a seven-year term as Israel’s ceremonial president in 2007, taking the role of elder statesman.

Peres was celebrated by doves and vilified by hawks for advocating far-reaching Israeli compromises for peace even before he negotiated the first interim accord with the Palestinians in 1993 that set into motion a partition plan that gave them limited self-rule. That was followed by a peace accord with neighboring Jordan. But after a fateful six-month period in 1995-96 that included Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings and Peres’ own election loss to the more conservative Benjamin Netanyahu, the prospects for peace began to evaporate.

Relegated to the political wilderness, he created his non-governmental Peres Center for Peace that raised funds for cooperation and development projects involving Israel, the Palestinians and Arab nations. He returned to it at age 91 when he completed his term as president.

An Incorrigible Path Blazer

Shimon Perski was born on Aug. 2, 1923, in Vishneva, then part of Poland, to his father Yitzhak, a wealthy timber merchant, and his mother Sarah.

He moved to Israel, then governed by the British Mandate, in 1934 with his immediate family. Her grandfather and other relatives stayed behind and perished in the Holocaust. Rising quickly through Labor Party ranks, he became a top aide to Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and a man Peres once called “the greatest Jew of our time.”

In 1945  Peres married Sonia. The couple had three children: Tzvia Valdan, a doctor of philology, Yehonatan Peres, a veterinary MD, and Nehemiah Peres, an engineer, managing partner and founder of a venture capital fund. Peres is grandfather to eight grandchildren and great-grandfather to three great-grandchildren.

At 29, he was the youngest person to serve as director of Israel’s Defense Ministry, and is credited with arming Israel’s military almost from scratch. Yet throughout his political career, he suffered from the fact that he never wore an army uniform or fought in a war.

Of his 10 books, several amplified his vision of a “new Middle East” where there was peaceful economic and cultural cooperation among all the nations of the region.

Despite continued waves of violence that pushed the Israeli political map to the right, the concept of a Palestinian state next to Israel became mainstream Israeli policy many years after Peres advocated it.

Shunted aside during the 1999 election campaign, won by party colleague Ehud Barak, Peres rejected advice to retire, assuming the newly created and loosely defined Cabinet post of Minister for Regional Cooperation.

In 2000, Peres absorbed another political slap, losing an election in the parliament for the largely ceremonial post of president to Likud Party backbencher Moshe Katsav, who was later convicted and imprisoned for rape.

Even so, Peres refused to quit. In 2001, at age 77, he took the post of foreign minister in the government of national unity set up by Ariel Sharon, serving for 20 months before Labor withdrew from the coalition.

Then he followed Sharon into a new party, Kadima, serving as vice-premier under Sharon and his successor, Ehud Olmert, before assuming the presidency.

“For 60 years, I was the most controversial figure in the country, and suddenly I’m the most popular man in the land,” he said. “Truth be told, I don’t know when I was happier, then or now.”

By: World Israel News Staff
AP contributed to this report.

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