Shimon Peres enjoyed one of the most remarkable political careers in modern world history — not least because it spanned nearly seven decades.
He was the last leading figure from the generation that founded the state of Israel in 1948, and he served that country in every leadership position imaginable until his death Wednesday at 93.
It will surprise some who know of Peres only as a dovish prime minister and president that was he was once one of Israel’s leading hawks. More than anyone else, he molded the new nation’s defense industry, built its air force, acquired its first sophisticated weapons and enabled Israel to develop nuclear weapons.
That capability, he once said, was acquired “not in order to have a Hiroshima but an Oslo” — referring to the 1993 peace agreement that won him a share of the Nobel Peace Prize (though the Oslo process eventually collapsed in a wave of Palestinian terrorism and defiance).
Peres was an unflinching optimist, more so than most Israeli leaders. Too optimistic, many Israelis felt, as he refused to accept that most Palestinians don’t want to live in peace with a Jewish state. Which is one reason why, though he served as prime minister three times, he never won a national election.
Yet even as Israelis thought his dream of a Middle Eastern Benelux was a fantasy, they didn’t question his sincerity or his commitment to Israel’s security.
In later years, as Israel’s largely ceremonial head of state, he became a beloved elder statesman who traveled the globe promoting both Israel and his unceasing dream of peace, which sadly remains unrealized. RIP.