On Israel and Zionism

General Comment: Peres claims Israel's security problems are behind her and her task is now to become a "spiritual center" of left wing universalism.

"Until now Israel has been preoccupied with the reestablishment of its territorial center. It is time for us to reestablish our spiritual center. I think that the last 50 years were a compensation for Jewish suffering. The coming 50 years should be an invitation to Jewish existence. What's the difference between compensation and an invitation? With an invitation you must shine. It is a uniqueness."
(Australia/Israel Review, June 6-26, 1997)

COMMENT: It is repugnant to call Israel's first 50 years "a compensation"for Jewish suffering. The "invitation to Jewish existence"is a typical Peres obfuscation, the meaning of which is presumably as opaque to him as it is to us.

QQ "[To Ruth Matar, a Jerusalem resident who criticized him in American-accented Hebrew] Go back where you came from."
(Jerusalem Post International Edition, February 3, 1996]

COMMENT: 1) Peres himself comes from Poland 2) in his capacity as Foreign Minister, Peres was presumably committed to encouraging aliyah, not emigration from Israel 3) Ruth Matar made aliyah from the United States over 30 years ago.

"You cannot have science without scientists, and scientists will not come to raise their children in a country which is financially corrupt or environmentally polluted or governmentally malicious."
(Jerusalem Post, May 4, 2000)

"QQ (Speaking to the Labor Party Convention in 1996) By the year 2000, we will overcome Hamas, Islamic Jihad and terrorism. By then we will bring a comprehensive peace to the Middle East. By then we will establish a just society, with a national income greater than that of England, and greater than that of France. You all know that everything that we say we will do, we will do."
(Arutz Sheva News Service, March 25, 1996).

COMMENT: Not one of the promises so confidently made by Peres five years ago has been fulfilled.

QQ "The security status of the State of Israel is stronger than ever."
(IsraelLine, July 7, 1995).

"In order for Israel to remain a Jewish state, Israel needs a Palestinian state and we have to do it right away."
(Jerusalem Post, May 19, 1998)

"As far as I'm concerned, it is in the Israeli interest to have a Palestinian state. . . . I would like to see a Palestinian state, and a successful one."
(Interview published in Al-Ahram Weekly, December 2-8, 1999)

COMMENT: A Palestinian state would be an impoverished, radical, irredentist dictatorship threatening both Israel and Jordan.

"[Speaking of the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] This is not an American-type system of government; it is Bolshevik."
(Arutz Sheva News Service, August 12, 1996)

COMMENT: While Peres never criticizes the Palestinian Authority's dictatorship, he attacks his own democratic government as "Bolshevik."

"[At an informal meeting of Labor members in the Knesset, Peres pointed at his colleagues Chaim Ramon and Hagai Merom] It's all because of you and your rotten egos. Your rotten egos. Because of all your rotten egos we look this way and the country is headed for a catastrophe."
(Haaretz, January 8, 1998)