Peres: Prophet without honor in his land

June 1, 1996
Web posted at: 9:30 p.m. EDT (0130 GMT)

From Jerusalem Bureau Chief Walter Rodgers

TEL AVIV, Israel (CNN) -- In the end, he looked more like an ordinary grandfather than one of Israel's greatest statesman and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. That is the enigma of Shimon Peres.

"I think he stands at the top rank," said Abba Eban a member of Peres' Labor Party. "I think he stands with our leaders like Chaim Weizman and Ben Gurion (and) like others who may be deemed to have changed history."

This was Peres fourth attempt to win Israel's prime ministership by popular vote. It was also his fourth rejection.

"There was something lacking in his chemistry with the public, particularly in the television age ... which his opponents had" said Joseph Alpher of the American Jewish Committee, Israel.

Bound to Israel's past

If Peres lacked charisma, he had a history. A young Shimon Peres was the right-hand man of the founder of Israel, David Ben Gurion.

As finance minister, he miraculously reduced triple-digit inflation to a single-digit rate. More than anyone else, he turned Israel into a regional superpower. He was the man behind Israel's military industrial complex and the father of its nuclear arsenal.

"It's thanks to Shimon Peres that Israel has its nuclear capacity. Everything is based on that. Israel was able to make peace, to withdraw from the Egyptian territory, to do its deal with Jordan, to bring Yasser Arafat back, all because it has this core of nuclear power," said political analyst David Landau.

It is one of the great ironies of Israel's election that Peres allowed himself to be cast as "soft" on the security issue.

"It's a bum rap," said Alpher. "But the question is not objective truth, but how the public saw it at election time."

What Israelis saw was a Shimon Peres who perhaps got out too far in front of the voters. They saw a man who may have talked too much of peace with Israel's Arab neighbors.

"He became seized, almost obsessively, with the idea of a peaceful relationship in the region," Eban said.

A new Middle East

To most, the idea of a Middle East at peace does not seem so far out today. Just four years ago, it would have been hard to imagine an Israeli prime minister on a routine official visit to an Arab country or another Israeli prime minister shaking hands with Yasser Arafat at the White House, all the result of Peres' labors and vision.

Perhaps it was Peres' genius that put him apart from ordinary Israelis. It may also have been his fatal flaw.

He may have listened too much to intellectuals and the adulation of outsiders and not to the fears of his own people. So Israeli voters rejected him. But Peres would not abandon the dream.

After the final election results were delivered Friday, Peres was asked what he would do now that he has been voted out of office. "I shall continue to work for peace wherever I shall be, no change," he said.

But change there is. Israel's Prime Minister Shimon Peres has been voted out of office, and he has become the prophet without honor in his own land.

Related stories:

• Israel: Pivotal Elections

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