Shimon Peres: Israel's government does not want to make peace with Muslim world

Shimon Peres, the Israeli president and Nobel laureate, has attacked the
government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming it is unwilling to
make peace with the Muslim world and instead risks the outbreak of a new
Palestinian uprising.

Israel’s elder statesman warned of the perils of his country isolating itself from America. Photo: AFP

“The silence that Israel has been enjoying over the last few years will not continue, because even if the local inhabitants do not want to resume the violence, they will be under the pressure of the Arab world. Money will be transferred to them, and weapons will be smuggled to them, and there will be no one who will stop this flow.”

Most of the world would then blame Israel for the violence and brand it a “racist state”, warned Mr Peres.

Israel’scurrent government has offered peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, but has also expanded Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Indeed in recent weeks Mr Netanyahu has angered the US by announcing plans for more than 6,000 new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Mr Peres said this policy risked losing US support by undermining Washington’s belief in Israel’s desire for peace.

Asked if Mr Obama believed that Israel shared his ambitions for peace in the Middle East, Mr Peres replied: “Of course he’s not convinced. He demanded an end to settlements and got a negative response, and they [members of Mr Netanyahu’s government] are to blame for the ongoing activity in the settlements. President Obama thinks that peace should be made with the Muslim world. We, the State of Israel, do not appear to be thinking along those lines.

“We must not lose the support of the United States. What gives Israel bargaining power in the international arena is the support of the United States.”

He added that standing alone from the US, Israel would be “like a lone tree in the desert”.

Mr Peres, 89, became president in 2007 after a 50-year career in the centre-left of Israeli politics during which he served as prime minister three times. His comments will draw accusations from Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud-Beiteinu bloc that Mr Peres is breaking the convention that the ceremonial president should remain above party politics. Israel will hold an election on Jan 22 and the polls suggest both that Mr Netanyahu will be re-elected – and most voters are pessimistic or apathetic about the prospects of peace.

Mr Peres shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 with the then prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, for jointly forging the ill-fated Oslo agreement.

In his series of interviews with the New York Times Mr Peres told the Israeli journalist, Ronen Bergman, that Mr Netanyahu was not providing positive leadership.

“I think that if the people of Israel heard from the leadership that there is a chance for peace, they would take up the gauntlet and believe it,” he said. “There are two things that cannot be made without closing your eyes – love and peace.”

Although Mr Netanyahu publicly committed himself in 2009 to the principle of Palestinian statehood, he has been dismissive of Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and the leader of the moderate Fatah faction. The two men have not met for more than two years. Mr Peres, by contrast, said he had met Mr Abbas several times with Mr Netanyahu’s knowledge and described the Palestinian as an “excellent” negotiating partner.

Mr Peres alluded to Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons by claiming credit for creating the country’s nuclear programme. “I do not think there are many people in the world who can say they managed to create a nuclear option in a small country,” he said, while reciting the achievements of his long career. Israeli leaders have always held to a policy of “strategic ambiguity”, neither confirming nor denying the possession of an atom bomb.

Mr Netanyahu renewed his attack on Mr Abbas on Thursday by criticising him for meeting Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader, in Cairo this week.

“Abu Mazen [Mr Abbas] embraces the head of a terrorist organisation that declared only last month that Israel must be wiped off the map,” said the prime minister. “This is not how someone who wants peace behaves.”