Contact Us More Info
Home
2003 Conference ...
Media Information
1998 Speaker Line-Up
Shimon Peres
Former Prime Minister of Israel
Nobel Peace Prize Winner
One of the great statesmen of our century, Shimon Peres, winner of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, has shaped the history of Israel and the future of the Middle East. In the seventies, as Israel's minister of defense, he engineered the legendary Entebbe raid against PLO terrorists; in the eighties, as prime minister he saved the Israeli economy from near collapse; and Shimon Peres, as foreign minister and Prime Minister in the 90s, was the key architect of the historic Peace Accords, which he describes in his book, Battling for Peace. As we follow Peres from his ancestral home in Poland to Israel, from the youth village of Ben-Shemen to Kibbutz Alumot, from youth movement leader to Prime Minister, we are introduced to a man and to a nation. A thoughtful, disciplined and immensely resourceful young man, Peres was singled out by Israel's great leader, David Ben-Gurion, who appointed him, while still in his 20s, as director general of the Ministry of Defense. From this point on, Peres' life was inseparable from his country's history. Peres writes of his bitter quarrels with Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin, and of his great admiration for Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan and Francois Mitterrand. He discusses the origins of Israel's nuclear program, and tells how he led the way toward the Oslo Agreement, describing his secret talks with King Hussein in London 10 years ago, and revealing how a chance for peace was thwarted by self-serving politicians and timid American diplomacy. | |
|
