Statesmanship versus demagoguery

Peres demonstrated during his long life the leadership qualities and necessary flexibility to pursue different ways to make Israel better and stronger.

He never forgot that Israel is at its best when it is at peace with itself and with its neighbors.

Netanyahu wants to use Israel’s formidable power as a tool to subjugate the Palestinians, maintain the occupation, and create irrevocable facts on the ground that would make it impossible for his successor to reverse, thereby preventing the Palestinians from realizing their aspirations for a state.

Peres put Israel’s survival first by developing a nuclear weapons program, knowing that Israel must possess the ultimate weapons to deter any sworn enemy that threatens the existence of the state—yet he never considered the Palestinians or any Arab state to fall into that category.

Netanyahu’s strategy, on the other hand, is shaped by daily events to ensure his personal political survival.

He uses the continuation and expansion of the settlement project ostensibly to ensure Israel’s national security, when in reality the Palestinians cannot and will never pose an existential threat to Israel.

Peres leaves a legacy, however controversial, as a statesman who deservedly earned his Nobel Peace Prize by forging the Oslo Accords in 1993, which also led to the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement two years later that Israel considers the bedrock of its security on its western front.

Conversely, after becoming Prime Minister in 1996 Netanyahu began the systematic destruction of the Oslo Accords, ignoring the implications of his reckless actions and charting the path that led to continuing violence that eventually culminated in the Second Intifada.

Peres realized that given Israel’s size and volatile neighborhood, it must become an active and supportive member of the international community to be embraced by all and respected for the strong moral tenants on which the country was founded.

Netanyahu, on the contrary, has and continues to pursue policies that increasingly isolate Israel, building fences instead of reaching out, and alienating Israel’s closest friends (including the US) who revile him for his policies that undermine Israel’s as well as their own interests in the Middle East.

Peres fully embraced the Arab Peace Initiative (API), which was introduced in 2002 and provides a framework for Israeli-Palestinian peace in the context of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, which could have led to the recognition of Israel by more than 50 Arab and Muslim states.

Netanyahu rejected the API off-hand, arguing that it was presented on a take it or leave it basis, when in fact he never contemplated negotiating peace with the Palestinians under any framework.