Millions of Palestinians have good reason to remember Peres

Tel Aviv loves nothing more than a good excuse for a memorial or a ceremony of some sort to divert international attention from the injustices it metes out on a daily basis to the Palestinian people. Thursday provided such an occasion in honour of former President and Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who died on 28 September last year, aged 93. The anniversary is being used as an excuse to honour the Zionist State’s so-called man of peace and Israel is stretching the memorial celebrations throughout the month to make the most of the propaganda value of his death.

The ancient Greek storyteller Aesop observed that “a man is known by the company he keeps” and so it came as no surprise that among those gathered for the first state memorial service in honour of Peres was former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Appropriately, they sat together at the event at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem from where Peres was eulogised for his determination to bring an end to the Israel-Palestine conflict, according to his successor, President Reuven Rivlin, anyway. However, if looked at purely from that angle, then the legacy of Peres is one of abject failure, to be really blunt, although that’s not how those present at his memorial remembered the former president and two-time prime minister.

The more honest amongst us do not forget that Israel’s “man of peace” was the person who introduced nuclear weapons into the Middle East as the architect of Tel Aviv’s nuclear weapons programme. Israel decided last year to rename its Dimona nuclear facility after Peres, which is a far more fitting tribute than the “man of peace” tag. A secret agreement with France led to the building of Dimona, which went critical around 1962. Today, Israel has an estimated 200 nuclear warheads, according to the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative. We can’t know for sure, though, because Israel is not subject to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency; nor, for that matter, is the US.

While last year’s funeral drew dozens of world leaders to pay homage to Peres, including US Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, all who could be mustered 12 months on were Blair and Kissinger, two notorious politicians more often than not described as “war criminals” by their detractors. Blair will forever be tainted by misleading Britain over the threat of non-existent weapons of mass destruction that led to the illegal 2003 invasion and war in Iraq, while Kissinger’s warmongering continues to be criticised thanks to the war crimes committed in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos on his watch. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — someone else accused of war crimes and now awaiting possible indictment on fraud charges — didn’t show up at the Peres memorial; he is in South America as part of a 10-day trip to Argentina and Colombia before heading to Washington.

Shimon Peres: Israeli war criminal whose victims the West ignored

While there were just a few people around to remember the death of Peres, it is fair to say that millions of Palestinians — indeed, millions of Arabs— have good reason to remember him, but not as a man of peace. Many still recall vividly the April 1996 mass funeral in southern Lebanon after Israeli artillery shelled a UN base in Qana on the orders of the then Prime Minister of Israel, a certain Mr Shimon Peres. One hundred and six civilians sheltering in the UN compound were killed in the unprovoked attack; a further 166 were wounded.

Despite the variety of roles that Peres played in the service of his country, he has been consistent in overseeing the destruction of Palestinians and their country. His speeches advancing the cause of peace and reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis were just hollow words.

His early years in the service of the Zionist cause were spent overseas negotiating arms deals; the weapons he procured were put to use in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the 1948 Nakba. He was also the brainchild behind the confiscation of Palestinian land for the purpose of building military bases and exclusive Jewish townships located strategically in Palestinian areas.

Thousands of Palestinian farmers remember Peres for the destruction of the countryside that their families had worked for centuries; too many are now out of work, their farms confiscated or damaged beyond repair. The “man of peace” fuelled the building of illegal settlements which now dominate the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem (and colonised the Gaza Strip, too) and have made a viable State of Palestine alongside Israel nigh on impossible to achieve.

It was difficult to mourn the loss of Shimon Peres when he died and, one year on, millions of Palestinians are still bewildered by the continuing eulogising of this particular Israeli leader. Probably the most fitting tribute, though, is something that he founded with his own hands; the Peres Centre for Peace is built on land stolen from Palestinians who once called Jaffa their home. That, more than any weasel words from the likes of Blair and Kissinger, sums up what Shimon Peres stood for.

Far from being a peacemaker, he was a hard-core Zionist intent on the colonisation of as much Palestinian land with as few Palestinians on it as possible. If he is going to be remembered for anything at all, let the world at least be honest about it.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.