Rewarding Moments: Prizeworthy vs. Praiseworthy

by Michael Widlanski

http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/06/26/rewarding-moments-prizeworthy-vs-praiseworthy/

Awards and prizes appear to be the ultimate credential, from the Oscar to the Grammy. But in complex matters—foreign policy, national security, terrorism—the verdict of elite committees is very undependable.

Over the last decade, the sheen has worn off two of the most prestigious awards—the Nobel Peace Prize and the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism.

Unlike the esteemed Nobel Prizes in literature and sciences from the Royal Swedish Academy, the “Nobel Peace Prize” is granted by a five-member panel named by Norway’s parliament, sometimes carrying the fishy aroma of Norway’s politics.

Often, its decisions reek like Norwegian salmon gone bad: giving President Jimmy Carter a prize for  meeting the peace-loving terrorists of Hamas and the tyrants of North Korea. Had Shakespeare been alive in 2002, he might have re-written the famous line in Hamlet to read: “something is rotten in the state of Norway.”

When Norway chose Obama for the Peace Prize even before he began his job as President of the United States, it reflected Norwegian politics—and its wishful thinking in world affairs, not any achievements on Obama’s part. The prize signaled Norway’s critique of America’s customary leadership role, while backing Obama’s multilateral and “lead-from-behind” attitude.

Norwegians probably now frown about stories of President Obama personally picking terrorists to kill by remote-control devices, probably dismayed hearing him brag how he determined, he directed, and he virtually pulled the trigger to kill Osama Bin-Laden. Many Americans disagree. They think it was one of Obama’s best decisions, though hardly an original idea of Obama’s.

The first U.S. president to win a Nobel (in 1906) was  the first president to venture abroad while in office—Theodore Roosevelt. TR helped end of the Russo-Japanese War. Obama has done nothing even remotely resembling such a peace-making effort. Rather, he assumed the Russians wanted a “re-start” worldwide—peace in Europe and Asia—only now learning that they preferred war in Georgia and supported tyrants in Iran and Syria. Obama’s negotiating skills also failed as he overstepped in Israeli-Palestinian talks, setting them back 20 years.

When Norway’s panel gave a Peace Prize to Al Gore for promoting his doctrine of man-made global warming, critics had trouble finding the link between temperature and planetary peace, as well as the scientific and policy justifications of the award. After all, there are some doubts whether global temperatures have risen in the last 15 years, and there are serious doubts about the role of man in possible climate change.

Several studies by Europe’s science conglomerate CERN indicate that solar storms and sunspot activity are far more important than man in global climate changes.

Unless you are a scientist or a global-warming junkie, you might not know this, because the news media are often shallow and predictable in these matters, and they are often similarly superficial about deciding the most cherished award in journalism: the Pulitzer Prize.

In the last six years, at least three Pulitzer Prizes were awarded to reporters or news media who attacked the U.S.-led war on Arab-Islamic terror: The Associated Press won this year for assailing the New York Police Department’s plans to monitor suspicious Muslim activities in and around New York—a place where such activities have already led to many attacks and thousands of lost lives. Meanwhile, The New York Times won once—in 2008—for outing U.S. interrogation efforts against terrorists, and it won again in 2006 for disclosing a U.S. monitoring of terrorists’ phone calls and ways to track suspicious money transfers in the banking system.

Did these news stories exhibit real investigatory excellence and enterprise or were they simply—like the Nobel Peace prizes to Carter, Gore and Obama—evidence of a certain political predilection?

Can we imagine the 1945 Pulitzer Prize panel giving an award to a newspaper that disclosed Allied preparations for D-Day, or a 1946 Pulitzer jury bestowing an award that revealed the secrets of America’s nuclear bomb program before Harry Truman decided he was going to bomb Hiroshima and shock the Japanese into surrender?

These  awards and their panels have become little more than labels. Like the terms “moderate,” “extremist,” “conservative” and “liberal,” the terms “Pulitzer-prize-winning” and “Nobel-Prize-winning” tell us more about those labeling and awarding than those being labeled.
To understand what’s for real under the label or the prize, we need to do some investigating: to investigate the motives of those attaching the label or bestowing the award.

When President Barack Obama recently gave the U.S. Medal of Freedom to Israeli President Shimon Peres, it was a good way for Obama to make a gesture to U.S. Jews and other supporters of Israel in an election year. But does the award itself prove that Peres succeeded in winning freedom or peace?
After all, Peres’s biggest achievement is authoring the PLO-Israeli pacts known as “The Oslo Accords” of 1993. They were a big hit in Norway, and Peres won a Nobel Peace prize for his part. Yet, the treaties led to the most blood-soaked decade in Israel’s history as a state. Peres and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin trusted the good will of Yasser Arafat and his PLO.

Peres tried to block the 1981 Israeli attack on Saddam Hussein’s atomic reactor that ended Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. By giving Peres a medal, Obama shows he likes “peacemakers” who avoid attacking dictators’ nuclear reactors (Attention: Iran). Obama’s medal to Peres also hints it is not so terrible to trust terrorists and dictators, to give them a second and third chance even if thousands of people end up paying with their lives.
Yes, another award-winning moment.

Eyes wide shut

by Ruthie Blum

President Shimon Peres is living proof of the fact that Israeli political leaders never die, neither literally nor figuratively. No matter how many times they get voted out of office or humiliated in some other way — not only through financial or sexual misconduct, but also in those cases — they keep popping back up like those annoying ads on the Internet.

This is not their fault. The system enables it, the public expects it, and the players involved understandably would rather remain on the scene than to retire into oblivion.

It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. If so, it is no wonder that the public feels such disdain for its elected officials. The Jewish state is so tiny that even Average Joes are likely to have some kind of personal association with the figures who determine their fate.

But let us not forget that familiarity also provides comfort. So it is often easier to bemoan the lack of leadership and complain that the younger generation is not producing quality politicians than it is to see strangers at the helm. At least we know exactly at whom to hiss during the nightly news. We feel free to get up and make coffee without worrying about missing something he or she said in our absence.

Predictability is as soothing — and snore-inducing — as a lullaby.

No leader in this country is as predictable and snore-inducing as Peres. Not only because he has been on the scene for so long, but due to his having long ago taken up residence in la-la-land — a place he dubbed the “New Middle East.”

It was with no small degree of relief, then, when he was finally given a job that is well suited to his talents and tastes, and to our view of his actual abilities. The fact that Peres succeeded former President Moshe Katsav, who is currently serving seven years in prison for rape, elicited a sigh of relief similar to that which was heaved across the United States when the White House was fumigated from Bill Clinton’s sleaze. Whatever else can be, and is, said about Peres, including about his alleged affairs over the years, he is viewed as someone possessing class and gravitas — qualities perfect for Israel's presidency, a position that is chiefly ceremonial.

Not that Peres sees it that way. In fact, in spite of being forbidden in his current role to further any political stance, he continues to spout his “peace at all costs” ideology at every opportunity. This provided U.S. President Barack Obama with a great opportunity to appear pro-Israel by awarding him the Medal of Freedom. The fact that Peres’ politics are far more radical than most Jews are willing to acknowledge is not supposed to matter within Israel — where the presidency is ostensibly neutral. But outside of Israel it matters a great deal, which is why Peres loves taking trips abroad.

It is also why, for the past four years, he has hosted “Facing Tomorrow: the Israeli Presidential Conference,” a kind of Davos-like event funded by rich cronies who share his notion that Israel has to “give peace a chance,” no matter how often its doing so has failed as a result of Palestinian intransigence and no matter how many Israelis are holed up in bomb shelters due to Iran-funded rocket fire from territory ceded by Israel.

Indeed, at this year’s three-day conference — which included a wide array of leftist speakers from Israel and abroad, including Peter Beinart of “boycott settlements” fame — one would not have had a clue that missiles were flying into Israeli cities at an astounding rate. The amount of blah-blah devoted to insisting that there were steps Israel could take to persuade the Palestinians that it was seeking peace in good faith, coupled with the loud music in the lobby (which included songs such as John Lennon’s “Imagine”), would have drowned out the sound of Grads and Qassams exploding, even if they had struck Jerusalem, where the conference was held, rather than an hour away, where they actually struck.

In Thursday’s morning plenary session, entitled “Learning from Mistakes on the Way to Tomorrow,” Peres gave a speech that shed light on this phenomenon. The following are actual statements he made, which serve as examples of why it is increasingly difficult to write political satire these days:

“In order to make peace, you have to close your eyes,” he said. “You cannot make love or peace with open eyes.” (Much laughter from the packed audience; hints of sex tend to have that effect.)

“Let’s make investigating committees not about our mistakes, but about our successes.” (Applause.)

“The appetite to govern, rule and be famous are valueless.” (Laughter, only from me.)

“One mistake I made was participating in the government decision not to talk to the PLO. This was a mistake, because if you talk to them, maybe they won’t shoot!” (Really?)

“People think that to be strong means having the upper hand. But maybe generosity is more powerful than power.” (Here he used the Marshall Plan as an example of how the United States gave without receiving anything in return. He did not mention that this came after defeating the Nazis in battle.)

There is a common quip Israelis use in relation to the nearly 89-year-old Peres and his endless energy, to the effect that he will be around to dance on all of our graves. Sadly, too many of our graves already exist due to “peace” plans he supported with his eyes shut.

Happily, Peres is no longer in the position to govern and rule — the appetite for which he advises the rest of us to curb. He is left only with fame — and frequent flyer miles — the hunger for which he tells us to shun.

La-la land must be such a nice place to live.

Ruthie Blum, a former senior editor at The Jerusalem Post, is the author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring,’” soon to be released by RVP Press.http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2104

Sharing the blame

Yes, Olmert and Peretz should resign, but people like Oppenheimer, Peres and Beilin should have the decency to shut up and take responsibility for the incredible damage they have already done

by Naomi Ragen
www.ynetnews.com
August 27, 2006

What I find most upsetting about the last month and a half is how little people talk about history.

The disastrous war with Lebanon was a long time in the making, with roots that go back many years: The decision to unilaterally run out of Lebanon in the middle of the night and to allow Hizbullah to endlessly arm itself on our borders, the disastrous unilateral disengagement that convinced our enemies we were morons prime for the taking and the budget cuts and politicization that have weakened the IDF.

All these things did not happen yesterday, and so a political party that was elected yesterday cannot be held solely responsible.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I said before the elections that Kadima was a bunch of losers that had gathered together in one place, and I was unfortunately correct. I am of the firm belief that Ehud Olmert, Amir Peretz, and Mr. Halutz should have the decency to resign over their incompetence. No question.

But that doesn't mean that the individuals and organizations responsible, including Ehud Barak, Shaul Mofaz, Peace Now, Women in Black, Four Mothers, Shimon Peres, and Yossi Beilin -- should sit back and get an exemption.

They were fighting, you had a Frappacino.

When I see smug peace-nowers like Mr. Oppenheimer on television attacking the head of the reservists protest movement, I want to shout at him: What right do you have to open your mouth and say anything to soldiers who fought in Lebanon to save your skin?

Haven't you and your kind done enough damage with your policies and your insane vision that has put our reservists on the front lines while you continue your diet of cake and Frappacino in Tel Aviv cafes, safe from rockets and mortars?

Where is the responsibility of the entire "peace" movement for all that has happened here, starting with the brainwashing of the Israeli people to take in Arafat, to give up land that is now being used as basis for the war of annihilation against us?

For policies that have proved an unmitigated disaster? They just go on and on, sharing their "wisdom" giving us their opinions, as if nothing has happened, priming us to get the next bunch of soldiers killed.

Yes, Mr. Olmert should resign, along with Mr. Peretz and Mr. Halutz. And people like Mr. Oppenheimer and Mr. Peres and Mr. Beilin should not be interviewed on television or have their words printed in newspapers. They should have the decency to shut up and take responsibility for the incredible damage they have already done to this country.

Lying through his teeth

by The Perescope

Guess who lied through his teeth last night on TV and got away with it?

Interviewed by legendary anchor Haim Yavin on Mabat, Israel Television's evening newscast, Shimon Peres stated that the "Grapes of Wrath" operation against Hizbollah terrorists, which he conducted in Lebanon during his brief tenure as Israel's prime minister in 1996, "was a great success." And in response, Yavin, a political Peresite known as Israel's "Mr. Television," didn't even wink.

With hindsight, there is no doubt that Operation Grapes of Wrath was a tremendous failure. After an Israeli shell went off-course and accidentally killed more than a hundred Lebanese civilians, Peres was anxious to end the hostilities, which began when Hizbollah launched katyusha rockets on Israeli towns and villages. Under international mediation, Peres agreed to a ceasefire, under whose inequitable terms Israel and the Hizbollah would not fire on each other. As a result of agreeing to tie the hands of the Israeli army, Peres's ceasefire allowed Hizbollah to rearm. This was ultimately untenable, and, as a result, Israel was eventually forced to withdraw overnight from Lebanon in 2000 with its tail between its legs.

The Hizbollah saw that, correctly, as a great victory on their part. They became the first Arab fighting force to expel Israel from territory without any quid-pro-quo. The great Hizbollah victory over the Israeli army was hailed by jihadists and rejectionists across the Muslim world as the precedent for future action, and was a model for Yasser Arafat's decision to launch his terror war against Israel later that year. If, after all, a Shi'ite militia could expel Israel by force from Lebanon, Arafat, who fancied himself as a later-day Saladin, could settle for no less in Palestine.

The war Israel is now waging in Lebanon is the inevitable result of its abandonment of its south Lebanon security zone in 2000. As long as Israel exercised control there, either directly or through the now-disbanded pro-Israel South Lebanon Army (SLA), Hizbollah was unable to launch rockets against Israeli towns and villages in the Galilee. In the past six years, Hizbollah has used its freedom of action in south Lebanon not only to re-arm, but also to import vast quantities of weapons from Syria and Iran, together with Iranian "advisors."

While Peres lied through his teeth, hundreds of thousands of Israelis were huddled in bomb shelters. Katyushas and Iranian-made Fajar rockets had brought death and destruction across the Galilee, from Haifa to Tiberias. And the man whose diplomatic malfeasance paved the way for such a tragedy continues to escape responsibility.

No Qassams in Peres-land

Sorry, Mr. Peres, but barrage of Qassams is good reason for hysteria
by Guy Benyovits
Yediot Ahronot
June 21, 2006

Out in Peres-land, residents have woken up to another blissful day of optimistic news. News editors, not wanting to frighten listeners, don't report the fact that several missiles have hit a school in a forlorn city in the south. A few children have been hurt, several suffered shock and will require extensive psychological counseling.

But residents of the town themselves, wanting to prevent unnecessary panic, chose to remain silent, rather than vent their pain to the country at large. The government of Peres-land has rubbed their hands together with satisfaction. Aahhh, what a well-functioning country we have. Model citizenry and media. Just like it was with Ben-Gurion.

Don't get so excited
Good morning, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres (perhaps the greeting "Red Dawn" would be more appropriate in this case). Monday, in the presence of six of the country's most influential political reporters, you uttered the following words: "This hysteria over the Qassams must end… "We're just adding to the hysteria. What happened? Kiryat Shmona was shelled for years. What, there weren't missiles?"

The next morning, you were already on the radio complaining that you'd been misunderstood. Once again, you've been taken out of context. You really meant, "Only the media is hysterical, and a small number of Sderot residents are making a lot of noise."

No comparison
Let's spend a minute talking about your claims. True, Kiryat Shmona suffered shelling attacks for years, and drew Israel into a blood-soaked war that took the lives of hundreds of soldiers. But what, exactly, has this got to do with Sderot?

Now for the media and Sderot residents. It is the job of both of these groups to arouse your lazy government to action. Hundreds of rockets have hit this town, Mr. Peres. It is a legitimate reason for hysteria.

Hysteria about the fact that the government has failed to protect its citizens. We may not be talking about the high-class suburb of Ramat Aviv where you live, but allow me to assume that if as much as one stray rock fell there, the rock-thrower would be "done away with" immediately.

But you know, it's just Sderot we're talking about, a forlorn "southern" town. It's easy to forget it's just an hour from Tel Aviv.

Learning from London
In your imagination, Mr. Peres, Sderot residents must learn from their counterparts in London during the Nazi blitzkrieg during World War II. A "stiff upper lip," it's called.

But residents of London had no choice. They knew their government, headed by Winston Churchill, was fighting and making every military effort to ensure Britain's continued existence. Churchill may have called for Britons' "blood, sweat and tears," but he also waged war with all the weapons at his disposal.

But you, Mr. Peres, you politicians have thrown little more than empty promises, with the exception of the occasional bomb against civilians – that have helped fan the flames.

Pre-planned response?
Suddenly, we are left with the feeling that maybe, just maybe, the issue here has nothing to do with government failure, not even with its failure to defend the residents of Sderot.

Could it be that the whole exercise was planned from the beginning, with the intention of building support for the "realignment" plan? That very same, fantastic one-sided plan (we are now seeing the benefits of that plan's predecessor), based on the idea that "there is no one to talk with."

As long as we refuse to talk, we will have Qassams, we will resume targeted killings, and we will create a situation of ongoing warfare.

Saving realignment
But if we stop, things between the two sides will disintegrate. If we let Mahmoud Abbas "solve" the problem of Hamas (as he has tried to do via the referendum and other political tricks), pay attention to what the world has been telling us in recent weeks (like ignorant children) and focus on setting stable, quiet borders around Gaza – the realignment will become damaged goods that nobody wants.

Seems to me, Mr. Peres, that this is exactly what you are hoping for. That you, too, think "realignment" is but one more "scribble," part spin and part outrageous dream, based on the principle of "I'll make my own decisions and carry them out. Let the other guys jump off a cliff."

In the meanwhile, the only thing jumping are the paramedics in Sderot. That, and the neat IDF statistics about the number of Qassams falling on the city.

He's one horny old man

by The Perescope

You’ve got to pity the man, it was so bizarre. Having been upstaged in the news following Ariel Sharon’s two strokes and the ensuing election campaign, all Noble Prize winner Shimon Peres wanted to do was attract a bit of attention and return to the front pages. So he sat down and thought up another one of his famous Big Ideas.

The Peres Center for Peace, whose main activity is rewarding large salaries to its staff of Peres cronies and groupies, would invite aging sex symbol Sharon Stone to Israel to meet Israeli and Palestinian children, tour a farm and visit a few other sites that are ostensibly under the patronage of the institution that the megalomaniac named after himself. Most importantly, Stone would breakfast with Shimon Peres himself on March 8, after which they would hold a joint press conference. The cameras would flutter and Peres would appear on CNN and, the following morning, on page 1 around the world.

What Peres’s inflated ego didn’t take fully into account, however, was that the journalists who showed up at his manufactured press conference didn’t give a whit about him. All they wanted to do was snap their photos of Sharon Stone and, maybe, get the lowdown on the sequel to Basic Instinct, which was about to premiere half a world away in Hollywood.

Understanding that this was her opportunity to grab a bit of publicity, too, she quickly complied. Rather than babble about Peres’s New Middle East, Stone babbled about her wardrobe, or lack of it, in her new movie:

"People just are sitting there going, like, 'I don't care what she's saying, I don't care what she's saying, I just want to know, does she get naked in the movie? Is she naked? Nude nude nude naked. Do I see her boobies? I don't care what she's saying, I don't care, I don't care, is she naked?' So let's just get through to that... YES!"

Well, what can one add? Stone’s soliloquy about appearing naked in her new movie is no less embarrassing than Peres’s New Middle East. It’s also relatively quite similar to Peres’s role in Oslo, where he got caught with his pants down

Peres was for sale, now he's sold

Report: Peres accepted illegal payments
by Dan Izenberg and Jerusalem Post Staff
April 27, 2006

As first reported by The Jerusalem Post some three months ago, State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss confirmed Thursday morning that MK Shimon Peres (Kadima) is suspected of accepting illegal contributions for his Labor Party primaries campaign.

According to the allegations, Peres received a forbidden donation of some $320,000 from two overseas donors on the eve of his loss to Amir Peretz in the party leadership race.

The State Comptroller's Office reported that Peres received donations of $100,000 each, from businessmen Haim Saban and Bruce Rappaport, and $120,000 from Daniel Abrams. The figures were provided by Peres himself.

The details of the report have already been brought to the attention of Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz and Peres has employed the services of attorney Ram Caspi.

Yoram Dori, an adviser to Peres, denied the allegations.

"Shimon Peres did not violate any laws. All campaign funding was done in accordance with the regulations," Dori said.

The complete State Comptroller report was set to be published in three weeks.

"We must make sure the law is upheld exactly as legislated by the Knesset," Lindenstrauss told the Post. "We must deal with these donations with an iron fist to make sure the law is observed."

Peres for sale

From loss to loss, Peres' demands get more ridiculous

by Ofer Shelah
Yediot Ahronot
January 9, 2006

Following Shimon Peres announcement that he would support Ariel Sharon in the upcoming elections, Sharon aides said that as far as the could see, Peres' support gave them more than they bargained for: It "legitimized" supporting Kadima for many traditional Labor voters, and it helped Sharon stabilize his party in the center - a center in which Peres and Tzahi Hanegbi could coexist.

But Peres is what the Americans call "high maintenance." During Sharon's first term, when the Labor Party was the largest Knesset and coalition faction, this maintenance expressed itself by Sharon's special attention (and that of Sharon's right-hand man, Uri Shani).

They stressed Shimon's value as a senior coalition partner - and in practice, torpedoed every initiative Peres threatened to undertake.

These initiatives, it must be said, were few in number, and not at all ripe. The man described by Rabin as an "indefatigable underminer" today undermines with greatly reduced energy.

Full price for Olmert

Starting with the 2003 elections Sharon's power has been such that even Peres was forced to admit he couldn't offer him much, and the prime minister didn't have to pay much in order to get the beaten Peres to join his ranks after the later lost to Amir Peretz.

But Ehud Olmert? Tzipi Livni? They will have to pay full price if they hope to retain Peres.

This price includes, amongst other things, a commitment that is never really a commitment, statements that leave an opening for Peres' traditional threat: The day will come, dear leader, that the polls will not flatter you, and the vultures will be circling overhead.

And then, then who will you find to run as a candidate who will be your heir? Who will be the one, the ONLY one, who can rescue your party/vision/peace/the Jewish people from the mud? Shimon, of course.

Seizing momentum

Peres' position today is reminiscent of some of the Israeli players on some of the country's top basketball teams: More than for what they accomplish on the court, they are valued for the fact that they are not on other teams.

Campaign wizards, for whom one of their most important key phrases is "momentum," fear Peres' departure would reverse the process of legitimization - back to Labor.

Therefore, Olmert will be careful to give as much honor as he can to Peres, but it is highly questionable whether he will commit to giving him anything concrete. Such a commitment would arouse the ire of other senior Kadima members.

At his advanced age, Peres finds himself in a position in which everyone knows he must - and can - be bought. With honor, with attention, by singing his praises to attest to his value.

This will not solve the problem, because this need is also insatiable. But it's all that can be done. And from year to year, from one electoral failure to the next, the price of upkeep doesn't change. Only the honor it brings with it becomes more and more questionable.

Rabin was right to call him an inveterate schemer: Peres plots to take over should Sharon die in office

Peres reconsidering running for Knesset

by Gil Hoffman
The Jerusalem Post
December 24, 2005

Former prime minister Shimon Peres is considering running for Knesset with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Kadima party.

"I cannot remain without a party and outside the Knesset," Peres said. "I haven't decided yet what I will do, but I am leaning toward being on the list and in the next Knesset."

Following his loss to Labor chairman Amir Peretz in last month's Labor primary, Peres announced that he supported Sharon's re-election. Sharon promised Peres a senior portfolio if he wins the March 28 election, but until the interview, Peres was not expected to seek a seat in the Knesset, where he has served since 1959.

However, Peres informed Sharon that he was considering running for Knesset when the two men met on Sunday and Sharon replied that he was welcome on the Kadima list. Shortly after the conversation, Sharon suffered his mild stroke and went to the hospital.

Channel 10's Dan Margalit reported on Friday night that Sharon's stroke convinced Peres that he could be prime minister again if he becomes Sharon's second in command. Peres's spokesman called the report "nonsense."

The spokesman said Peres's decision about whether to run for the Knesset would not be impacted by polls published recently that indicated that Peres was the public's top choice to serve as Sharon's number two in Kadima.

A source close to Sharon said that the second slot on the Kadima list would go to either Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or Justice Minister Tzipi Livni.

"Peres will be in a high place on the list but I don't think he will be in the top five," the source said.

His racist brother's racist keeper

Peres' brother slams Peretz's 'militias'
Gigi Peres: North African militias took over Labor.
Party members blast vice premier;
Peres associate: He won't be staying in Labor.

by Attila Somfalvi
Yediot Ahronot
November 28, 2005

Gigi on the attack: Vice Premier Shimon Peres' brother, Gigi, blasted the Labor party in an interview with Army Radio on Monday, charging that Labor Chairman Amir Peretz "recruited militias that infiltrated the party and took over."

"Like General Franco, he recruited militias from North Africa," Gigi Peres.

"It's like crabs at sea that go into shells - you don't know if it's a snail or a crab," Gigi said referring to the new Labor leader, charging that at first Peretz approached Peres and asked that they join forces against "fascist" former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

The scathing attack comes amid increasing signs that the longtime Labor member is on his way out of the party.

Responding to the comments, Labor's Ophir Pines said "we are talking about remarks that smell of racism and have no place in the political system in general, and in the Labor party in particular."

Pines called on Shimon Peres, "who for many years acted to open up the Labor party to numerous, diverse publics," to strongly condemn his brother's words.

As far as the senior Labor members are concerned, Peres' departure from the party is already a done deal. Even before the veteran politician announced he is quitting, some of his colleagues are lashing out at him.

"He's been getting a guaranteed a spot on the party's list without contending for the last 20 years," a source at Labor told Ynet on Monday. "This tradition should be over and done with. The position of party president he was offered is respectable enough. If he wants to go - let him go, we don't need any favors from him."

Labor members lashed at Peres not only for his demand for a guaranteed spot in the Knesset (a demand which Peres and his associates deny was ever made), but also for what they say is his failure to contribute to recent peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

"In the 10 months Peres held a position in the government, he failed to promote even one subject related to the Palestinians. Therefore, the claim that his participation in peace talks is essential is irrelevant," a high ranking party member said.

"Peretz was smart not to make any promises to Peres," another member told Ynet. "Guaranteeing him a spot now will leave him in this position until he is 86 years-old. Does this make any sense?" he asked.

'Peres not coming back to Labor'

Meanwhile, other sources at the party said they were astounded by Peretz's refusal to secure a spot for Peres in the next Knesset, and claimed the old leader should have been granted a respectable spot on the list in order to persuade him to stay in the party and not "defect'" to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new faction, Kadima.

Meanwhile, Peres associate Shmulik Rifman claimed the vice premier is angry with Labor Chairman Peretz and the party's Director General, Knesset Member Eitan Cabel.

"I know what he's been through in the last few weeks. I know what he had to face after his defeat in the party primaries. After speaking with him on Monday I can say one thing for certain: He is not coming back to this party," Rifman said.

Rifman has himself already made the move from Labor to Sharon's Kadima party last week.

In the meantime, Peres is attending an international convention in Barcelona, where he is scheduled to attend a soccer match between the local all-star team and an Israeli-Palestinian team.

Peres is expected to announce his decision on his future moves after returning from Barcelona.

Ronny Sofer contributed to the story

The Gasbag

Shimon Says
from the November 2005 edition of Outpost,
a publication of Americans for a Safe Israel
http://mideastoutpost.com

Israel's ludicrous former Prime Minister, ever solicitous for Arab welfare, frets on Israel Radio that if Hamas candidates are permitted on the ballot in Palestinian Legislative Council elections, "the major threat is that the Palestinians will lose or endanger the massive financial aid they have been offered." Said Peres: "I don't think the world will support any Palestinian institution that supports terror."

That this gasbag still heads Israel's Labor Party is the best single disproof of the contention that Jews are intelligent. Under Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority had of course been supporting terror all along: apparently Simple Shimon never figured that out. And as for "the world" cutting off the PA, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has already announced that the U.S. has no objection to Hamas on the ballot: this administration, obsessed with "process," sees no problem with empowering terror organizations.

Peres's Oslo chickens come home to roost

Sanitizing Arafat made Ahmadinejad possible
by The Perescope

On October 26, the president of the soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while addressing a "conference" ominously called "The World Without Zionism," promised that the Palestinians would eventually "wipe Israel off the map."

No need to worry. Ahmadinejad was quickly condemned by Shimon Peres. "It is inconceivable that the head of a nation that is a member at the UN would call for genocide," our Vice Prime Minister declared. "His call stands against the UN charter and constitutes a crime against humanity."

Ahmadinejad must be shaking in his boots.

This is, after all, the same Shimon Peres who cavalierly brushed aside Yasser Arafat's oft-repeated genocidal vows to wipe Israel off the map when he recognized Arafat as a negotiating partner at Oslo in 1993.

"Peace for us means the destruction of Israel," Arafat once stated in a typical moment of candor. "We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations."

Or this quote, from an interview with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci: "The end of Israel is the goal of our struggle, and it allows for neither compromise nor mediation. We don't want peace. We want war, victory. Peace for us means the destruction of Israel and nothing else."

At Oslo, Peres sanitized Arafat, the godfather of international terrorism, and, in so doing, legitimized anyone and everyone else who calls for Israel's destruction. So having seen Israel capitulate to Arafat at Oslo, why should Ahmadinejad shirk from making similar Arafatesque demands for Israel's destruction today? Peres says that Iran should be suspended from the United Nations for advocating genocide, a crime against humanity. He’s right. The destruction of Israel would indeed be genocide against the Jewish people, and that ought to be considered a crime against humanity. So why did he reward Arafat at Oslo?

It is instructive that the first foreign leader who rushed to Teheran following the Ayatollah Khomeini’s establishment of an Islamic state in 1979 was none other than Yasser Arafat. This only underscores the enormity – and obscenity – of Peres’s Oslo miscalculation. Now, twelve years after Oslo, Shimon Peres's chickens have come home to roost in a soon-to-be-nuclear Iranian chicken coop.

The world's oldest teeny-bopper guest stars on MTV

Once again, Peres does the twist
September 27, 2005

New York (AP) [The Perescope's comments are bracketed in green] In a New York college class, the MTV camera and all eyes were on the door, awaiting the professor – a surprise.

In walked Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

"I am your surprise," the 82-year-old Nobel Prize winner, cracking a smile, told the undergraduate students at New York University [one wonders whether he said the same thing to Arafat in Oslo in 1993].

The result was a taped-for-MTV discussion of the world's troubles [many of which were caused by Peres's own diplomatic mismanagement], with Peres telling the politics majors that the biggest achievement of the past century was the liberation of women [I guess that means he's finally stopped peddling his long-standing idiotic claim that his Oslo Accords were the greatest thing since he invented Swiss cheese].

The session is to air September 27 on MTV's college targeted network, mtvU, which pipes student-aimed programming onto more than 700 US campuses, as well as the cable channel's public Web site.

When questions-and-answers time came, Peres was peppered with queries about everything from how he felt when the Palestinian flag was raised over Gaza after Israeli settlers left, to whether Israelis and Palestinians could live side by side.

Stay tuned for the answers, when the class airs on MTV's year-old channel, whose other fill-in professors at various colleges have included rocker Marilyn Manson, author Tom Wolfe, rapper Nas, Arizona Sen. John McCain and singer Sting.

Peres ended with a zinger, telling students that "America is the big Satan, and Israel is the little Satan" – that is, according to the leaders of Iran, whose government Peres said is run by "a secret, sacred group of ayatollahs" he called "killers." [Peres used to call Arafat and his ilk "killers" before Oslo, too. Does that mean that Peres is now holding clandestine talks with the Iranians? Or does it mean that Peres has finally learned the lesson of his Oslo mistake -- that there can be no compromise with those who call for your eradication. Unfortunately, no one asked him to fess up.]

This hardly resembled the class advertised to students to hide the surprise – a session devoted to making "a promotional video for incoming freshmen." Still, 21-year-old Stephen Gallo was nonplussed by the highpower politician.

"It's an insider view of the Middle East," said the senior. "I didn't learn anything I didn't already know [we never learn anything new from listening to Peres babble, either, Stephen, so don't take it personally]. But he's a Nobel Prize winner, and there have been a lot worse peace prize winners, like Yasser Arafat" [and, perchance, did Peres mention who it was who made Arafat's ignominious Nobel Prize possible by sanitizing him and negotiating with him in Oslo?].

Happy Birthday Madonna!

Peres Cultivates a Cult of Personality
August 16, 2005
by The Perescope

Guess who celebrated a birthday on August 16? Madonna did, but so did another international pop star.

In case you didn't remember the megalomaniacal gala at Tel Aviv's Mann Auditorium two years ago on that date, attended by the likes of Bill Clinton, Kofi Annan and Mikhail Gorbachev, which cost the indulgent celebrant and the hard-pressed Israeli taxpayer hundreds of thousands of shekels, you would have been reminded by an advertisement on the front page of the August 16th edition of Ha'aretz, the Hebrew daily that arrogantly proclaims itself to be the newspaper for "people who think" -- a self-flattering and overly-generous euphemism that Israeli leftists apply to themselves.

Ran Rahav, a celebrity Israeli PR guru, took out the expensive ad to wish a happy birthday to his friend Shimon Peres. Although he didn't find it necessary to level with Ha'aretz readers by admitting in the ad that he's Peres's long-time buddy, Rahav did pay for enough ink and column inches to thank Peres for his role (or, more accurately, what Peres claims to have been his role) as the father of Israel's nuclear program.

Now we're not talking here of an ad placed by Madonna's PR agent on the front page of Variety. This was an ad signed by one of Israel's leading image makers on the front page of what likes to think of itself as Israel's version of The New York Times.

When was the last time you saw a personality cult like this in a democratic country? The custom of publishing an ad on the front page of a newspaper to wish The Great Leader a happy birthday used to be something worthy of Pravda. The tradition undoubtedly continues with Kim Jung Il in the so-called Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and, for all I know, maybe even with Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. The custom of holding an expensive birthday bash broadcast on TV, like Peres did two years ago, otherwise probably died out with Nicolae Ceaucescu, if not with Stalin himself.

Nowhere in the Western world does a political leader cultivate this sort of cult of personality. What's particularly repugnant in this unique case, however, is that the newspaper for "people who think" doesn't criticize it editorially. Instead, it lends its front page to panegyric expressions of flattery and puff. When it comes to The Great Leader, Ha'aretz, like Pravda, prefers for its readers not to think at all. Would they be as slavishly subservient to Madonna?

Peres's "victims of peace"

Finally, he finds the time to pay his respects to the dead
August 7, 2005
by The Perescope

A terrorist dressed in an Israeli army uniform opened fire with an automatic weapon on innocent passengers in a bus last Thursday afternoon. The driver and three passengers, two of whom were sisters, were killed. The terrorist was lynched by the angry crowd that gathered outside the bus when his ammunition ran out.

All told there have been tens of thousands of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians since Shimon Peres launched his Oslo fiasco in 1993. As of last Thursday, a total of 1,329 Israelis had lost their lives in the years since Yasser Arafat and the PLO "renounced" terror.

As a sign of solidarity with the bereaved families, it is customary for a minister in the government to attend the funeral of every victim of terror. Ministers take their turns in this solemn responsibility. Shimon Peres has been a minister for over eight of the twelve years since he initiated his Oslo debacle. But he had never attended even one funeral among the 1,329 that took place as a direct result of his diplomatic failure. Not one.

Two consecutive presidents of Israel has made it their responsibility to visit every bereaved family during its period of mourning, but Shimon Peres has never deigned to visit even one such family, much less all of them. It's just been beneath him. The many dead that Oslo left in its wake have been mere details for a busy, traveled statesman like Shimon Peres, who has preferred to brush them off like dandruff. "Victims of peace" is the contemptuous, Orwellian term he once coined for them.Until now.

Why now? Because the terrorist who opened fire in that bus last week was a Jew, and his four victims were Israeli Arabs. For the first time since the Palestinian terror war against Israeli civilians began five years ago, a single Jew (albeit an AWOL soldier with a psychiatric record) murdered innocent Arabs. So Shimon Peres broke with his coldhearted precedent and paid a condolence call on the elders of the Israeli-Arab town of Shfaram, together with his protégé, Interior Minister Ophir Pines (pronounced not like the tree, but like a certain human organ, believe it or not). It's not clear if Peres actually visited with the bereaved families themselves, but he did make himself available to television cameras as he called upon local dignitaries to reassure them of his commitment to peace and reconciliation between Arabs and Jews.

Meanwhile, the families of Peres's other 1,329 "victims of peace" are still waiting for him to console them and admit responsibility for the disaster that he unleashed on the citizens of the entire country, Jews and Arabs alike.

Shimon the hypocrite says

Shimon Says: Papers are papers and realities are realities. We cannot judge the PLO and its leader just by what he is saying. Would we do so, we would be completely wrong and we would be in troubles. [Heritage, Los Angeles, June 3, 1994]

Then Shimon Says: You cannot sit down, reach an agreement and then go around and declare different things. You govern by words and respect for words. If you devalue a word or an agreement, you kill the peaceful solution. [ibid]

Shimon Says: No doubt that Israel's next goal should be to join the Arab League. [Lecture at the Islamic College in Western Galilee, quoted in Ha'aretz, December 21, 1994 and in The Jewish Press, December 30, 1994]

Then Shimon Says: (Asked about the Secretary of the Arab League's response that Israeli Jews had to become Moslems before they could join the Arab League) Well, that also shows that it belongs to the past. The Arab League is part of the past. There is no room for an Arab League. [Middle East Quarterly, March 1995, p. 77]

Shimon Says: Syria is likely to attack Israel even if a peace agreement is reached. [Yediot Ahronot, October 5, 1994]

Then Shimon Says: President Assad has the opportunity to have something extra because he and we can really bring belligerence to a total end [The New York Times, November 23, 1995, p.6]

Shimon Says: [Asked about the wisdom of a deal with the then-dictator of Syria, Hafez al Assad] Well, the system of government is transitional, peace is permanent. [Middle East Quarterly, March 1995, pp. 77-78]

Then Shimon Says: We have learned there is no stable peace unless it is based on relations between democratic states. [Knesset speech, January 25, 1993]

Shimon Says: We shall not recognize the PLO unless it amends the Palestinian Covenant and renounces terrorism. [Knesset speech, August 30, 1993]

Then Shimon Says: The Arabs used to say: "If you recognize the PLO, you will be recognized by the Arab world." We recognized the PLO but we have not been recognized. They also said, "We will put a stop to terrorist actions." I observe that they continue. [Agence France Presse, March 24, 1995]

Shimon Says: We are going to copy a European example which is called Benelux. I hope the relations between the Jordanians, the Palestinians and us will be very much of the same nature that exists in Benelux. [Address to Council of the Socialist International, October 6, 1993]

Then Shimon Says: [There will be] total separation between Israel and PLO-controlled autonomy areas. Check points will be established and the entry and exit of all persons and vehicles in and out of “Israel proper” will be closedly monitored. Anyone, Jew or Arab, violating this, will be punished to the full extent of the law. [from a speech to the nation quoted in The Jewish Press, March 8, 1996]

Oslo wasn't his only mistake

Who lost Iran?
The Jerusalem Post
July 27, 2005
by Trita Parsi

In October 1992, years before Iran enriched uranium or had ballistic missiles, Shimon Peres launched a campaign to portray Iran as "the greatest threat and greatest problem in the Middle East." Peres's premature warnings turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Today, Israel should be cautious not to repeat Peres's strategic mistake by pre-empting Iran's conservative president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, since history has shown that prophecies can come true.

As the Labor government opted for closer relations with the Palestinians and the Arab states in Israel's vicinity in 1992, Peres turned the decade-long Israeli doctrine of the periphery on its head and went all out against Iran.

Peres's timing was strange. Only six years earlier, at the height of Iran's ideological zeal, he had sought a "broader strategic relationship" with Iran. Peres had been a driving force behind what later became the Iran-Contra scandal and he even sent his aide to Iran together with Robert "Bud" McFarlane and Oliver North to meet with senior Iranian officials.

By 1992, however, when Peres started portraying Iran as a major threat, Teheran's revolutionary fervor had cooled considerably. Iran was struggling with its war-torn economy and it sought a thaw in its relations with Washington. The clerical regime had no uranium centrifuges, no Shahab-3s and no Fajr rockets in Lebanon. Yet it was a "global threat," Peres insisted.

Sensing a shift in Israel, Teheran concluded that Israel was behind the campaign to isolate Iran. Eager to rebuild its economy and regain its position as the gendarme of the Persian Gulf, Iran feared that a successful Oslo process, and Peres's portrayal of Iran as a threat to the Arab world, would result in Iran's permanent isolation and pariah status.

Consequently, Peres's reversal of the periphery doctrine prompted Teheran to annul Ayatollah Khomeini's dictum that Iran should never be a frontier state in the Palestinian struggle. Up until 1992, in spite of its ideological zeal, Iran had been only marginally involved in anti-Israeli activities. Teheran's opposition to Israel was primarily rhetorical, a fact that hadn't escaped Israeli officials in the 1980s.

Iran even lacked enduring ties to Islamist rejectionists groups due to the Shi'a-Sunni divide. And much to the anger of the PLO, contrary to Teheran's grandiose promises, the Iranian leadership refused to offer material support to secular Palestinian groups, due to their pan-Arab leanings. By 1994, all of that had changed.

Peres's preemptive portrayal of the Iranian threat contributed to the creation of that very threat. To his credit, Binyamin Netanyahu recognized the folly in the Labor Party's approach and significantly lowered Israel's tone, leaving Teheran alone in playing the rhetorical game. Netanyahu also recognized that Peres's vision of a New Middle East left both friends and foes in the Islamic world worried about Israeli hegemonic aspirations.

Today, premature reactions to Ahmadinejad's election risk repeating Peres's mistake. Much concern has been expressed in the media with regard to Ahmadinejad's possible foreign policy inclinations – will he reinitiate the export of the revolution and accelerate the Iranian nuclear program, or will he grudgingly proceed with Iran's quest to rehabilitate itself into the region as a status-quo state? Mindful of the lack of information about Ahmadinejad, most of the speculation is rooted solely in the fact that he defines himself as a conservative.

The conventional wisdom in Washington and Jerusalem reads that the actions of the West have minimal impact on Iran since the clerical regime is acting according to its ideological compass and not reacting to its environment. This is a serious misreading of Iran.

Though the extent of the powers of the Presidency in Iran is debatable, that Iran doesn't formulate its foreign policy in a vacuum is not.
Since the early 1990s, Iran has actively sought to break out of its isolation and win approval and legitimacy for what it considers to be its natural role – a leading state in the Persian Gulf region.

Increasingly, strategic considerations have taken precedence and ideology has become a secondary driving force of Iranian foreign policy. Though its rhetoric hasn't moderated as much as its behavior, there is a clear distinction between Iran's operational policy and the statements coming out of its Friday prayers.

Compared to the mid-1990s, Iran's strategic interest in Israel has decreased significantly. An Israeli-Palestinian settlement will not pose the same strategic threat to Iran's influence in the region today as it would have done in 1994. Consequently, Iran has no compelling strategic reason to escalate tensions with Israel, with or without Ahmadinejad as president.

Unless, that is, Israel and the US escalate first. The harsh rhetoric and preemptive threats coming out of the US and Israel will cause Iran to cling on to its deterrent capabilities. And if Ahmadinejad follows Iran's historic behavioral pattern, Iran will only actualize its deterrence if Israel or the US intensify their efforts to prevent Iran from finding a regional role commensurate with its geo-political weight.

Israel should be careful not to repeat Peres's mistake. The world is a different place today than it was in 1992. Then Israel's military superiority was at its peak. Today, Israel is within the reach of states like Iran.

Israel has nothing to gain from seeing its prophecy on the Iranian threat come true. Escalating tensions with Iran in anticipation of a harsher foreign policy under Ahmadinejad may do just that.

The writer is a Middle East specialist at Johns Hopkins University

If Peres were honest

Lebanon, Oslo and the appropriate conclusions
www.israelnationalnews.com
August 23, 2004
by Reuven Eliaz

Regardless of the outcome of the negotiations now taking place between the Likud and the Labor party concerning the establishment of a national unity government, one scenario is certain: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, unlike many of his predecessors, will not simultaneously serve as defense minister.

That is because in 1983 a government commission of inquiry, headed by then-Supreme Court president Yitzhak Kahan, found that Sharon, who was serving as defense minister, was indirectly responsible for the deaths of between 700 and 800 Palestinian civilians murdered by Lebanese Christian militiamen at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Beirut during Operation Peace for Galilee. The Kahan commission, which was established as a result of public pressure following a mass rally in Tel Aviv organized by Peace Now and the Labor party, determined that "responsibility is to be imputed" to Sharon "for having disregarded the danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed." He was urged to "draw the appropriate personal conclusions arising out of the defects revealed with regard to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office." Sharon was subsequently removed as defense minister and has never held that position again to this day.

As tragic as they were, however, the numbers of Palestinians killed at Sabra and Shatilla have been dwarfed by the more than 1,200 Israelis who have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists since the signing of the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993. Shimon Peres, who then served as foreign minister, promised a "New Middle East" in the wake of Israel's agreement to recognize the PLO and negotiate with Yasser Arafat, who had been discredited internationally for having supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

Peres's "New Middle East," however, never materialized. During the almost eleven years that have elapsed since Oslo, and certainly in the almost four years that have elapsed since Arafat began his war of terror against Israeli civilians, a clear majority of Israelis have come to the conclusion that Arafat was and remains an unreconstructed terrorist who cannot be a partner to any negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The latest Israeli, apparently, to come to that conclusion is Shimon Peres himself. Peres has now been quoted by Ma'ariv as having told Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, that Arafat, with whom he and the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, "is crazy" and that "someone has to pound some sense into his head." In a later meeting with the visiting president of Georgia, Peres was reported to have said that Arafat "didn't know how to transform himself from guerilla leader to the leader of a state-to-be." [My translations from the Hebrew.]

To be fair, it should be noted that Peres tried to backtrack from these quotes in the days after they first appeared in print. His spokesman initially claimed that Peres had meant to say that Arafat "had gone mad." When that didn't quite clarify his position, Peres stated openly that he didn't call Arafat "crazy" because he doesn't employ "that type of language." Just a few weeks earlier, Peres had called the current government's economic policies "shitty" and "piggish," but the inconsistency is beside the point. By now, most Israelis, in contradistinction to Shimon Peres, see no reason to be coy in calling Arafat what he really is.

In any event, Peres, the architect of Oslo, has now admitted in as many words that his New Middle East was based on a fatal flaw – Arafat is incapable of negotiation with Israel and unfit to play the role of peace partner. Peres thus joins a growing list of international opinion makers – from the UN's Terje Roed-Larsen to King Abdullah of Jordan to the editors of The New York Times – who have come to the conclusion that Arafat is part of the problem, not the solution.

That being the case, the time has arrived for a government commission of inquiry to be appointed to determine to whom responsibility is to be imputed for having disregarded the danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed that Oslo made possible. Certainly, the Labor party, which took the moral high ground in demanding a commission of inquiry to investigate Sabra and Shatilla, has no reason to object. The chairman of the Labor party during Operation Peace for Galilee was Shimon Peres, who holds that same position today. In the meanwhile, Peres should voluntarily remove himself as a candidate for foreign minister in any national unity government that may be formed in the coming weeks. If someone had to draw the appropriate personal conclusions for the dead of Sabra and Shatilla, then someone should also draw the appropriate personal conclusions for the many more dead of Oslo.

Will the real Shimon Peres please stand up?

Peres vs. Peres
The Jerusalem Post
Dec. 13, 2003
By Martin Sherman

In his "First Word" opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post entitled "Israel's two greatest mistakes" (December 5), Shimon Peres argues that our greatest blunders were first, the failure to take Anwar Sadat's peace offers seriously and thereby avoid the 1973 Yom Kippur War; and second, the Likud's insistence on constructing settlements across the 1967 Green Line, squandering huge sums which could have been invested elsewhere.

Peres goes on to regret the absence of David Ben-Gurion, who, in his view, would have ended the conflict through territorial concessions - much as Peres's Oslo policy purported to do.

As Peres put it, "had we invested the necessary energy in making peace with Egypt after Nasser's death and before the Yom Kippur War, we would probably have avoided that war and might have achieved a different kind of peace accord than we got at Camp David."

However, according to his own public statements, it is clear that one of the greatest opponents to Ben-Gurion's supposed largesse would have been none other than Shimon Peres himself.

Consider the following quotation made several years after the Yom Kippur War. In a detailed programmatic book entitled Tomorrow is Now (Keter, 1978), Peres blatantly rejects the Sadat "peace proposal" that Ben-Gurion would have allegedly accepted prior to 1973: "Now Sadat proposes a peace treaty in this generation. However, it may be the present generation of Arabs is not able to live in the full harmony of peace with the people of Israel; this is something that cannot be ignored. Perhaps the present Arab generation can do no more than reach an interim agreement; but such an agreement cannot involve a return to the 1967 borders or the establishment of a Palestinian state" (p. 232 - all translations are mine).

Indeed, Peres was quite explicit in his opposition to a Palestinian state, declaring in a chillingly accurate prophesy: "The establishment of such a state means the inflow of combat-ready Palestinian forces (more than 25,000 men under arms) into Judea and Samaria; this force, together with the local youth, will double itself in a short time.

It will not be short of weapons or other [military] equipment, and in a short space of time, an infrastructure for waging war will be set up in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Israel will have problems in preserving day-to-day security, which may drive the country into war or undermine the morale of its citizens. In time of war, the frontiers of the Palestinian state will constitute an excellent staging point for mobile forces to mount attacks on infrastructure installations vital for Israel's existence... and to cause bloodshed among the population... in areas adjacent to the frontier-line." (p. 232.)

In his Post article, Peres laments the settlement enterprise as a "tragic missed opportunity." "Had the Likud and its leaders accepted Ben-Gurion's view 25 years ago, the whole country would look, and live, differently. Tremendous sums of money invested in the territories would have been invested in the Negev. Instead of cultivating a cruel fight between us and our neighbors, we would have developed the alternative 'fight': with the Negev wilderness."

But who was among the chief architects of the settlements and one of their most ardent advocates? Again, Shimon Peres.

In the same 1978 book Peres wrote: "[Israel needs] to create a continuous stretch of new settlements; to bolster Jerusalem and the surrounding hills, from the north, from the east, and from the south and from the west, by means of the establishment of townships, suburbs and villages - Ma'aleh Adumim, Ofra, Gilo, Beit El, Givon and Nahal outposts - to ensure that the capital and its flanks are secured and underpinned by urban and rural settlements.

These settlements will be connected to the coastal plain and Jordan Valley by new lateral axis roads; the settlements along the Jordan River are intended to establish the Jordan River as [Israel's] de facto security border; however, it is the settlements on the western slopes of the hills of Samaria and Judea which will deliver us from the curse of Israel's 'narrow waist'" (p. 48).

Peres writes now that Israel's tragic "mistake was falling in love, without bounds, without demographic considerations, with the territories." Yet it was Peres who urged the nation to expedite its development of the territories, warning, "What we do not do today, we will sorely regret for generations, but what we invest and develop today will be accumulated wealth for generations. It is better that we owe money but develop our land, rather than lose land (whose value will ever-increase) and save money (whose value will ever-decrease)" (p. 49).

With regard to the Golan, Peres is no more consistent. He currently claims, "I know from my contacts with Hafez Assad that he was prepared to take an initiative that would have turned an agreement with Syria into an agreement with all the Arab countries." This is totally at odds with his former resolute affirmation of the enduring need for Israeli settlement of the Golan, declaring: "The purpose of the settlements in the Golan is to ensure that this territorial platform will no longer constitute a danger, but a barrier against a surprise attack" (p. 48).

Accordingly, if Peres is right in what he diagnoses as Israel's greatest mistakes, then he is undeniably among the chief perpetrators and instigators of these historic blunders. If he is wrong, then he is guilty of abandoning those who, at his behest, established their homes in the territories across the 1967 borders.

Either way, some humility would seem to be in order from a leader who has demonstrated a lack of foresight, staggering historical amnesia, or both.

The writer lectures in political science at Tel Aviv University.

Peres bears the mark of Cain

Unrepentant Shimon
The Jerusalem Post
September 25, 2003
by Uri Dan

Even the 80th birthday celebrations Shimon Peres arranged for himself this week could not, thank God, ever turn him into an Israeli prime minister.

So we can relax. It was enough to hear Peres's defense of Yasser Arafat, his co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, to realize that Peres is living in an imaginary world.

"I want to be honest, and I don't care what they say: I believe it was right to give him the Nobel Prize," said Peres in a speech. He continued: "He made a mistake by failing to dismantle groups opposed to peace with the Jewish state. He spoke against, but did not act against them."

In 1994 Peres himself, as foreign minister, shared the peace prize with Arafat, together with prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. So in attempting to justify the award to Arafat, he was, in effect, defending himself. Were Peres living in the real world, were he truly honest with himself, as well as with his nation he would have returned the prize.

Palestinian terrorists never before used so great a quantity of explosives including the dynamite Nobel invented to kill innocent Jews as they have since Peres and Arafat received that peace prize.

The files of the GSS and army intelligence are overflowing with reliable documents proving that Arafat himself gave the orders, the directions and the money to perpetrate these terrorist acts. And it has been going on not only over the past three years, but ever since Rabin and Peres permitted Arafat to return to the Gaza Strip in the summer of 1994, together with thousands of armed "policemen."

Of course there are more recent documents linking Arafat directly to the current terrorist offensive, in which more than 800 Israelis have been killed and thousands injured.

And all this Peres calls "a mistake." What was the mistake? That Arafat did not dismantle the terrorist organizations, but as those incriminating documents prove encouraged them, and goes on encouraging them, to continue their terrorist attacks. Which is why not only Prime Minister Ariel Sharon but also President George W. Bush have concluded that as long as Arafat is around there will be no progress toward peace.

Peres's latter days shame his younger years. Truly it may be said about him who loves to boast in broken French that he is familiar with French history what was once said about the Bourbon dynasty: "They learned nothing and forgot nothing."

Can it be said that Peres is an egocentric person, unable to admit his mistakes even when surrounded by the victims of his policies? Can his defense of the award of the Nobel Prize to a serial killer of Jews be explained by the fact that, at 80, a person is liable to lose his judgment? No. This is Shimon Peres at his best: An irresponsible leader, or perhaps one with "flexible responsibility."

There were times when this irresponsibility was exploited for the good of the state. But that happened a long time ago, when Israel had a responsible prime minister, David Ben-Gurion.

Ben-Gurion wanted to give Israel a nuclear option and assumed the responsibility for it. But in order to set up this security wall he needed an adventurer willing to cooperate with France in order to construct a nuclear reactor in Dimona a seemingly irresponsible financial, political and scientific adventure.

However, Ben-Gurion, who was a responsible leader, knew how to ensure that Peres would not exceed the bounds of his flexible responsibility in this secret undertaking. He permitted him to lay the foundations for Israel Aircraft Industries.

Small, poor Israel producing modern aircraft? It sounded like a crazy dream. But under the balanced leadership of Ben-Gurion, Peres could recruit Al Schwimmer for an adventure that became reality.

Even when Peres served as foreign minister a year ago, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon knew how to restrain his tendency toward destructive adventurism, permitting Peres to travel again and again to his ally Arafat, "to bring peace." As could be expected, he brought more terror. "Meet with Arafat. Invite him to visit my farm. Shake his hand," Sharon said to Peres, to get him to enter the swamp of blood.

"Uproot the settlements in Gaza as a gesture to Arafat," Peres pleaded in return. Sharon, an experienced and responsible leader and the last real pupil of Ben-Gurion, rejected all these requests by Peres out of hand.
Rabin, in contrast, lacked backbone as prime minister which allowed Peres to bloom in all his irresponsibility. In order to achieve the Oslo agreement, Peres conducted meetings with the PLO through his deputy, Yossi Beilin, using messenger boy Uri Savir as one of his envoys, all in opposition to Rabin's policy. He reported none of this to the prime minister.

Then when Peres revealed the trap into which he had led him, Rabin was too weak to resist. He even agreed to Peres's demand that the professional intelligence services, the GSS, the Mossad and the General Staff not be involved, not even in the final stages of the Oslo agreement. As a result, they knew virtually nothing about it.

In other words, in the most fateful negotiations between Israel and Arafat's PLO, neither Peres nor Rabin permitted the participation of the nation's most important security institutions apparently in the knowledge that their files contained information indicating that Arafat would not honor a single agreement; and that he intended to reach the gates of Jerusalem, from where he would continue the terrorist offensive and destroy the Jewish state.

All this goes some way toward explaining how an unrepentant Peres could have dared this week, once again, to defend the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Arafat, while the blood of hundreds of his innocent victims cries out from the earth.

You should live to 120, Shimon, bearing the mark of Cain on your forehead. That is your punishment.

The writer is Israel correspondent for The New York Post.