{"id":113,"date":"2016-09-28T14:20:39","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T14:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/foreverinourhearts\/?p=113"},"modified":"2016-09-28T14:20:39","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T14:20:39","slug":"israels-warrior-peace-shimon-peres-passes-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/foreverinourhearts\/2016\/09\/israels-warrior-peace-shimon-peres-passes-away.html","title":{"rendered":"Israel’s Warrior for Peace, Shimon Peres, Passes Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"640px-Israeli_President_Shimon_Peres_speaks_during_a_meeting_with_Secretary_of_Defense_Chuck_Hagel_in_Jerusalem,_April_22,_2013\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Shimon Peres has passed away at age 93. Peres was the Israeli elder statesman who shared a Nobel Prize for forging a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. He served as a constant force for generations in Israeli politics.<\/p>\n

Peres died after suffering a massive stroke two weeks ago. He had been making progress but doctors said he took a turn for the worse on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Peres held many top leaderships roles including Prime Minster and President. The Labor Party veteran was the face of the Jewish state and was well-respected in Israel and across the globe. Peres retired from public office in 2014 after the end of his seven-year term as President. He was in Israeli politics for more than half a century.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no corner of this country that he hasn\u2019t touched,\u201d Zionist Union Chairman Isaac Herzog once said. \u201cEverywhere he goes around the world, people listen to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shimon Peres battled Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for Labor Party leadership in the 1980s and 1990s but eventually became Rabin\u2019s foreign minister.<\/p>\n

In that role, Peres concluded the Oslo Peace Accords, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 with Rabin and Yasser Arafat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very grateful to him for a lifetime of thinking big thoughts and dreaming big dreams and figuring out practical ways to achieve them,\u201d President Bill Clinton once said of Shimon Peres.<\/p>\n

After Rabin was assassinated in 1995, Peres became Prime Minister, a position he held three times. Peres called early elections so that the government would have a mandate to pursue a two-state solution.<\/p>\n

Peres faced a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings and other attacks that tarnished his peace process during this time as Prime Minster. The violence ultimately cost Peres the ensuing elections; however, he never stopped believing in peace. He continued to carry on the work of Rabin.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeace is costly,\u201d Peres said in 2015. \u201cOnly thing is, war costs more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shimon Peres was no stranger to making history. He became Israel\u2019s ninth President. In 2007, he addressed the Turkish Parliament becoming the first Israeli President to speak to a Muslim country\u2019s legislature. He called for peace talks in 2011 with the Palestinians, and warned the United Nations against recognizing Palestine as an independent state outside a peace plan. He received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 from Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

After leaving office in 2014 he remained in the public eye, continuing his work for peace in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

When asked how he wanted to be remembered, Peres mentioned his dedication to peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like a person that has served this country rightly and properly,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that is, in my judgment, the highest degree a person can feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

On this day, there are few Israelis who would disagree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shimon Peres has passed away at age 93. Peres was the Israeli elder statesman who shared a Nobel Prize for forging a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. He served as a constant force for generations in Israeli politics. Peres died after suffering a massive stroke two weeks ago. He had been making progress but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":600,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIsrael's Warrior for Peace, Shimon Peres, Passes Away<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Shimon Peres, the Israeli elder statesman who shared a Nobel Prize for forging a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, has passed away at 93.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/foreverinourhearts\/2016\/09\/israels-warrior-peace-shimon-peres-passes-away.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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