I missed this when it came out a few weeks ago. So it's old news in more ways than one. Yes, many of us already knew that Shimon Peres was delusional. But maybe we hadn't realized quite how bad the situation was getting.
In an Op-Ed piece in the Jerusalem Post back on December 4th, Peres waxed nostalgic about the peace-that-might-have-been. If only Israel had avoided its "two greatest mistakes."
At the memorial service for David Ben-Gurion a few days ago I thought to myself that with Ben-Gurion at the helm those two mistakes would have been avoided. What were they?
One is that we did not turn the military victory into a political gain. I am not referring to our declarations of willingness to make peace with the Arab countries based on the international borders. Those were lifeless words. Freight cars of words without a real engine. Had we invested the necessary energy in making peace with Egypt after Nasser's death, and with Egypt before the Yom Kippur War, we would probably have avoided that war and might have achieved a different kind of peace accord than we got at Camp David.
Ben-Gurion, who said that for real peace he would have given back most of the territories, was not at the helm. His words were heard, but as the words of a statesman, not as the commitment of a leader. Peace with Egypt would have led to peace with Jordan. And King Hussein would have been the one to manage the Palestinian issue . . .
THE SECOND mistake was falling in love, without bounds, without demographic considerations, with the territories. I could not believe it when I heard Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declare at Ben-Gurion's memorial service, "A Jewish state without the integrity of the land is better than the integrity of the land without a Jewish state." And this, he says, is on behalf of the prime minister.
What a tragic missed opportunity. Had the Likud and its leaders accepted Ben-Gurion's view 25 years ago, the whole country would look, and live, differently.
Fortunately, I don't have to try to craft a meaningful and devastating response to this nonsense. It's already been done. Masterfully. Consider this:
However, according to his own public statements, it is clear that one of the greatest opponents to Ben-Gurion's supposed largesse would have been none other than Shimon Peres himself.
Consider the following quotation made several years after the Yom Kippur War. In a detailed programmatic book entitled Tomorrow is Now (Keter, 1978), Peres blatantly rejects the Sadat "peace proposal" that Ben-Gurion would have allegedly accepted prior to 1973: "Now Sadat proposes a peace treaty in this generation. However, it may be the present generation of Arabs is not able to live in the full harmony of peace with the people of Israel; this is something that cannot be ignored. Perhaps the present Arab generation can do no more than reach an interim agreement; but such an agreement cannot involve a return to the 1967 borders or the establishment of a Palestinian state" (p. 232 – all translations are mine).
Indeed, Peres was quite explicit in his opposition to a Palestinian state, declaring in a chillingly accurate prophesy: "The establishment of such a state means the inflow of combat-ready Palestinian forces (more than 25,000 men under arms) into Judea and Samaria; this force, together with the local youth, will double itself in a short time.
And this:
But who was among the chief architects of the settlements and one of their most ardent advocates? Again, Shimon Peres.
In the same 1978 book Peres wrote: "[Israel needs] to create a continuous stretch of new settlements; to bolster Jerusalem and the surrounding hills, from the north, from the east, and from the south and from the west, by means of the establishment of townships, suburbs and villages – Ma'aleh Adumim, Ofra, Gilo, Beit El, Givon and Nahal outposts – to ensure that the capital and its flanks are secured and underpinned by urban and rural settlements.
These settlements will be connected to the coastal plain and Jordan Valley by new lateral axis roads; the settlements along the Jordan River are intended to establish the Jordan River as [Israel's] de facto security border; however, it is the settlements on the western slopes of the hills of Samaria and Judea which will deliver us from the curse of Israel's 'narrow waist'" (p. 48).
Fascinating. Peres? Meet Peres. The most direct and effective arguments against Peres' 20/200 hindsight come from Peres himself. Kudos to Martin Sherman for this entertaining and informative piece. You really should go read the whole thing, but I'll quote his concluding knock-out punch here.
Accordingly, if Peres is right in what he diagnoses as Israel's greatest mistakes, then he is undeniably among the chief perpetrators and instigators of these historic blunders. If he is wrong, then he is guilty of abandoning those who, at his behest, established their homes in the territories across the 1967 borders.
Either way, some humility would seem to be in order from a leader who has demonstrated a lack of foresight, staggering historical amnesia, or both.
You can say that again.
