JERUSALEM – On a cloudless blue morning, an honor guard brought the flag-draped casket of Shimon Peres to the Mount Herzl national cemetery on Friday as 100 world leaders and dignitaries from 70 countries assembled to bid a final farewell to the former Israeli leader and Nobel laureate.
President Barack Obama, who was the last to speak, said that the contribution made by Peres to Israel was “so fundamental, so pervasive, it can sometimes be overlooked.”
A younger generation will “probably remember him for a peace process that never reached its end,” Obama said, noting that critics on the left wanted Peres to acknowledge Israel’s failings, while those on the right believed he “refused to see the true wickedness of world and called him naive.”
“I don’t think he was naive. He understood from hard earned experience that true security comes from making peace with your neighbors,” he said, comparing Peres to South African President Nelson Mandela. “He believed that the Zionist idea was best protected when the Palestinians have a state of their own.”
Both Obama and Israeli novelist Amos Oz sought to push forward Peres’ life ambition of an Israel living side-by-side in peace and security with a Palestinian state. Both men spoke of the need for a two-state solution and urged current Israeli leaders to fulfill Peres’s vision for the region.
“Where are the heirs of Shimon Peres?” Oz asked during his eulogy.
Former president Bill Clinton praised Peres as a leader who experienced “crushing setbacks” – in politics, in his efforts for peace – and woke up “to seize the possibilities of each new day.”
Clinton knew Peres intimately over a quarter century. Alongside former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the two of them hammered out the details of the Oslo Accords, the frame that launched the now stalled peace process.
Speaking in a rough voice, Clinton said Peres started life as Israel’s best student, became its best teacher “and ended his life as its greatest dreamer.”
The former president said it is not easy to move past defeat. “It must have been hard for him to do this,” he said. “First he had to master his own demons, forgive himself for his own mistakes and get over his own disappointments.”
This “monumental effort required that he grew his heart to be bigger than his brain.”
Clinton made an appeal to the audience at the funeral and watching on satellite broadcasts to “keep his gifts alive.” When the road ahead comes to a dead end, “when the hand of friendship meets only a cold stare, remember his luminous smile.” Then Clinton paused. “And imagine.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his eulogy in a mixture of Hebrew and English and said Peres, “soared to incredible heights. He was a great man of Israel and a great man of the world. We find hope in his legacy as does the world.”
“There is no secret that we were political rivals, but over the years we became good friends,” Netanyahu said. “Shimon and I disagreed about many things but that never overshadowed many warm discussions. Our friendship deepened with every meeting. In our discussions of a fundamental issue, security versus peace, Shimon told me, ‘Peace is the true security. If there will be peace, there will be security.’ I told him, security is essential for achieving peace and maintaining it.”
Netanyahu continued: “We went back and forth for hours. I came from the right, he from the left, I came again from the right, he again from the left. Like two prize fighters we put down our gloves. I saw in his eyes and he saw in mine, the deep-seated beliefs to ensure the future of Israel.”
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who gave his eulogy first, spoke in familiar terms “as one president to another.”
The Israeli president said Peres’s death represented “the end of the era of giants whose life stories are the stories of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel.”
Rivlin also asked forgiveness from Peres for the times in their long careers when they clashed. “Red lines were crossed between ideological disputes and words and deeds which had no place,” he said.
The state funeral for Peres is one of the largest in Israel since the 1995 burial of Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist who opposed the efforts of Rabin and Peres to make peace with the Palestinians.
Peres will be buried beside Rabin.
The main highway from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was closed to traffic Friday morning to allow incoming world leaders to quickly get into the holy city.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attended and sat beside Donald Tusk, president of the European Council.
Peres, the 93-year-old former prime minister, president and Nobel Peace Prize winner died at a Tel Aviv hospital before dawn Wednesday from complications of a massive stroke suffered two weeks earlier.
Until the stroke earlier this month, Peres was keeping a full schedule, meeting with visiting U.S. senators, school children and activists. He was still enjoying the occasional glass of wine and working on a book. On his 93rd birthday, he joined Snapchat.
The ceremony took place on the hilltop with large television screens set amid the pine trees. Translation were provided for the guests in Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian and other languages.
More than 8,000 Israeli police officers were deployed on Friday and there was tight security with road closures.
Israel police chief Roni Alsheich told reporters Thursday that security forces carried out “preventative arrests” of several Jewish and Arab suspects “out of fear that they could cause problems at the state funeral.”
On Thursday, an estimated 35,000 Israelis, alongside tourists, diplomats, political leaders and a former U.S. president, climbed the hill to the Israel parliament to pay their respects before the flag-draped casket of Peres, one of last of the original founders of the Jewish state.
More than 90 delegations from 70 countries are expected at the funeral.
Jordan sent its deputy prime minister and former chief peace negotiator Jawad Anani. Jordan’s King Abdullah II sent a note of condolences, but no member of the royal family attended. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry came, but not the president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Turkey sent Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmet Yildiz.
In addition to Obama, the Israel Foreign Ministry reported that the national leaders and dignitaries attending included French President Francois Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
The British delegation was led by Charles Prince of Wales, alongside former British prime ministers David Cameron and Tony Blair, and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
Featured Image: Haaretz
(c) 2016, The Washington Post · William Booth
