Beyond the accolades: A sobering retrospection of Shimon Peres
Shimon
Peres, with his fondness for a universalism – an offshoot of his
socialist, and later global, inclinations – that was the hallmark of the
Left, offered us a New Middle East where both sides were wrong.
Murderer and victim alike.
Quoted in
The Jerusalem Report in May 1997, Shimon Peres
quipped, “In Argentina, the home of the tango, you know that in order to
dance, well, you have to close your eyes and let the romance
begin.…Peace is a romantic process.” Perhaps, but it takes two to tango,
and when he passed away as the 93 year-old venerable statesman who held
virtually every important political post in Israel’s history, his dance
card was still empty.
“For me, dreaming is simply being
pragmatic.” Words which captured the essence of Shimon Pere’s approach
to bringing peace to the Middle East, and ones that might more suitably
belong on a poster found on the walls of a college dorm. But not in the
real Middle East, where they have little political currency. Shimon
Peres died as he lived. Dreaming. And tragically, clinging to a
misbegotten notion of an elusive peace that was victim to an ongoing
Arab war against a Jewish people.
Driven by a
philosophical outlook that fashioned his politics, Peres believed that
democracy, coupled with science-and technology-based economies, would by
nature produce peace. His dream was as naïve as it was ambitious. He
was forever proud of his place with the Socialist International, an
organization that was befittingly referred to by the Americans for a
Safe Israel as one “of little influence and less morality.”
Often
rejecting the very element that drove other Jewish leaders in a
post-Holocaust world, he once confessed that, “It is a great mistake to
learn from history. There is nothing to learn from history.”
He
doubled-down: “Israeli children should be taught to look to the future,
not live in the past. I would rather teach them to imagine than to
remember.” No, the words were not those of John Lennon, but the utopian
utterance of Shimon Peres who envisioned a “New Middle East.” It was a
dream not shared by the other side, an enemy that was actually
comfortable falsifying history simply to have it fit their own
narrative.
But history has taught us that dreams can usher
in illusions, and illusions can readily turn to delusions. Or worse –
self-delusions. Described once as a “purveyor of delusions to a people
desperately grasping for hope,” Shimon Peres, with his fondness for a
universalism – an offshoot of his socialist, and later global,
inclinations – that was the hallmark of the Left, offered us a New
Middle East where both sides were wrong. Murderer and victim alike.
As
the last of the generation of Israel’s founders, he entered politics in
1959 and subsequently served as prime minister, twice; as well as
minister of defense, foreign affairs, and finance, and finally, unable
to vacate the stage, in the ceremonial post as its president. He needed
the spotlight as much as he craved an audience and an interview.
Although
he never served in the IDF – something that he was often criticized for
by the average man in the streets – his political opponents remembered
well the roles that the much younger Peres played with Israel’s military
industry. There were many. Most notable, he skillfully befriended the
French, and played a pivotal part in establishing Israel’s nuclear
installation in Dimona, a cornerstone of Israel’s deterrent capability.
His
political perspective shifted over the years. From hawk to dove. And
then, to a dove among doves, with a political viewpoint more befitting
one of the smaller, often fringe, leftist camps that was always
unapologetically critical of its own country. And as he journeyed left,
his international standing seemed to grow. It was understandable in a
post-1967 world that was quick to eschew its feelings of guilt about
Jewish suffering. As Peres aged, he often seemed to be Israel’s favorite
political personality, everywhere but in Israel.
As Peres aged, he often seemed to be Israel’s favorite political personality, everywhere but in Israel.
Former
Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin called Peres unscrupulous and
untrustworthy, offering that he could not believe a word spoken by him.
Shimon
Peres tried in vain to subvert Israel’s bombing of the Iraqi nuclear
installation in Osirak in 1981, and continued to criticize it even years
after its success. In kind, it was reported just recently that he took
credit for having been the stick in the spokes aborting Israel’s efforts
in taken similar preventive measures to cripple the installations in
Iran as well.
Applauded by the European political elite
that he respected more than he did his own nation’s counterparts, Peres
was more concerned in the accolades of the former than the objections
and criticisms of the latter.
His frequent pursuit of
utopian visions led to a number of distinguished awards in Europe and
the United States, but was met with derision by the people of Israel
where he was never popular. Not surprisingly, he was more the darling of
the leftist J-Street in Washington than he was his own political party
in Israel. He sought those who would appreciate his statesmanship,
however failed his endeavors.
Largely unpopular among the
Israeli populace, at the head of his Labor Party he led it to electoral
defeat on five occasions. When he ran and lost against Menachem Begin in
1977 and again in 1981, it was often said that ‘half the nation loved
Begin and the other half hated him
; but everyone hated Peres.’ Later in
his political career, when he was spurned for a leadership role by some
of his own, he opted to join other parties in order to keep himself
relevant, while never truly finding an alternative political home.
He
kept dreaming. The thing that characterized Shimon Peres was not the
arrogant elitism that he wore quite proudly – it was the politics – the
zeitgeist –
as it shaped his immutable New Middle East mindset. His proudest
accomplishment was the 1993 Oslo Agreement that brought together Israel
and the Palestinian Arabs. The spurious peace that emerged brought the
Nobel Peace prize to Peres, Rabin and Yasir Arafat a year later. It did
not bring peace.
Shimon
Peres viewed Israel’s implacable enemy, the PLO – which was formed in
1964, three and a half years before Israel “occupied” the territories it
wished to liberate – as a legitimate partner for peace, notwithstanding
the Palestinian Arab’s constant reminders that they were not.
Peres
called the Oslo Accords a moral imperative, a “sense of national
mission and historic conscience” – while his peace partners were
launching a proliferation of terror attacks that murdered over one
thousand of his countrymen.
He remained undeterred.
A
champion of the creation of a Palestinian state as part of the
two-state solution that was envisioned at Oslo, he failed to understand
that the Palestinians refused to accept one of those two states. So much
so, that when asked if he questioned Arafat’s desire for peace
following the PA’s frequent praise of suicide bombings in Israel, Peres
stated that “what counts is not the intentions of the Palestinians; yes,
I do believe it is irrelevant.” Not to the Palestinians, it was not.
Three
years later, in 1996, determined to deliver the elusive peace, Peres
boasted: “By the year 2000, we will overcome Hamas, Islamic Jihad and
terrorism. By then we will bring a comprehensive peace to the Middle
East.” The promise and the prediction were not to be.
The
Arab Spring that he had hoped would spread did not. But Islam has.
Violent and unapologetic. And beyond his New Middle East. The poorly
disguised Trojan horse began to find a home throughout Europe. A
befuddled Mr. Peres seemed confused. Even his favorite, France, tasted
the terror that Peres thought could be dreamt away.
A
darling of a world that sought to always find fault with Israel, Peres
often incredulously served as an apologist for those who scolded or
lectured the Jews. He once opined that while the Israelis were willing
to petition for peace, the Jews, less so. The distinction was classic
Peres-speak. Not exactly a populist, Peres futilely tried to channel
David Ben Gurion when he remarked, “I may not know what the people want;
I know what is good for the people.”
Following several
series of murderous terror attacks against Israelis, Peres tried to
assuage an angry Israeli citizenry by urging that it not make too large a
matter of it. He callously called those Jews who were murdered in one
particularly heinous attack as “sacrifices for peace.”
He
callously called those Jews who were murdered in one particularly
heinous attack as “sacrifices for peace.” No, a grieving mother
corrected him sternly, they were victims of peace.
No,
a grieving mother corrected him sternly, they were victims of peace. In
Israel, that obscene comment by Peres was never fully forgotten. Nor
forgiven.
Willfully blinding himself to an enemy whose
raison d’etat was
the denial and destruction of the Jewish State, Peres relished that he
continued to be viewed everywhere but in Israel as the nation’s most
admired politician. The very impressive guest list of VIP’s at his state
funeral – foreign political dignitaries and those of pop culture – was
proof. As were the very thin lines of Israelis that dotted the streets
to pay homage for his procession, unlike the hundreds of thousands who
appeared to memorialize Begin and Rabin.
For him, the
“other side” was not the Arab camp that never recognized Israel’s right
to exist – de jure. It was the other side of the political divide in his
own country, of whom he often spoke with a scorn reserved for them
alone.
He even dared to suggest that the attacks on the
United States on 9/11 were caused by the failure to solve the
Arab-Israeli conflict, a propaganda canard that echoed the narrative of
its perpetrators.
Shimon Peres wanted so much to leave his
mark as peacemaker that he routinely ignored the fact that Israel’s
designated “peace partner” – the Palestinian Authority – routinely named
city squares, soccer stadiums, and streets after some of the most
notorious murderers. That could not be dreamt away. It was something
that the civilized statesman was unable to grasp about the uncivilized.
The
accolades and the eulogies are now yesterday’s news. And the war
against the Jews is as real today as it was when Shimon Peres was still a
young man, when he first started dreaming.
Shimon Peres
lived a long life. By most measures, it was certainly a life rich in
accomplishments. And yet, his dreams were unfulfilled. On the day he was
buried the official Fatah newspapers featured a cartoon of Mr. Peres
finding his place in Hell. After seventy years of political activism,
even the venerable statesman could not find a willing dance partner.
Meir
Jolovitz is a past national executive director of the Zionist
Organization of America, and formerly associated with the Institute for
Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/19572
