THE MAN WHO BUILT A NATION TO SELF-SUFFICIENCY
SHIMON PERES
Born in a small town in what is now Belarus in 1923; his family moved to British-ruled Palestine when he was a boy. He grew up alongside the birth of Israel. Peres held almost every major office the country had to offer, including prime minister and president, serving the country for a cumulative period of about seven decades, and helping shape the nation. That length of service gave him a chance to influence events in ways that reached far beyond one country.
In the late 1940s and 1950s working towards building Israel's ability to defend itself, he helped buy weapons and set up an aircraft industry when the young Israeli state had almost nothing. He worked with France to secure arms and to develop a nuclear program at Dimona, which Israel has never officially confirmed. These steps changed the balance of power in the Middle East and made Israel much harder to threaten. They also started a lasting debate about nuclear weapons in the region. Critics say this program fueled an arms race, while supporters say it kept Israel alive.
As foreign minister in the early 1990s, he helped lead secret talks in Norway with Palestinian representatives. These talks produced the Oslo Accords in 1993, the first agreement in which Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization recognized each other. Peres shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat. He also supported the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. The Oslo process did not end the conflict, and many now see it as a failure. Still, it changed the way the world talked about the conflict, and it made the idea of two states a serious goal.
Peres argued that trade, technology, and shared projects would do more for peace than speeches. He pushed Israel to move from farming and defense toward high technology, and he backed the start-up culture that later made the country famous. After leaving politics, he founded the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, which ran health and science programs for Israelis and Palestinians. As president from 2007 to 2014, he acted as a global ambassador, meeting leaders and speaking about the future. He was often mocked as a dreamer, but many of his ideas about technology and cooperation have been proven to be futuristic.
365 men who changed the world.
Kamikun John, Author 366 days of wisdom.
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