Shimon Peres was the eight elected Prime Minster of Israel. He currently serves as President of Israel. He has held his current office since July 2007.
Peres was born in Poland (now Belarus) in 1923. Peres moved to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1934. Peres grew up in a non-religious home but was grandson of a Haredi Rabbi. This instilled strong Jewish values that persist through today.
From 1932 through high school Peres lived in Tel Aviv. He later spent time on several Kibbutzim and became affiliated with the Labor party through involvement in a Labor youth movement.
Peres had a fruitful military career as well. Peres joined Ben Gurion’s Haganah in 1947 and worked his way up to Deputy Minister General of the Ministry of Defense in 1952 and General Director of Military and Defense in 1953. Peres is credited with a major purchase of French Dassault Mirage III fighter aircraft, establishing the Israeli nuclear facility, and working toward an agreement during the 1956 Suez Crisis.
Peres was elected to the Knesset for the first time in 1959 as a member of Mapai. He was Defense Minister from that time until 1965 when he left Mapai with Moshe Dayan and David Ben Gurion to form the Rafi party. Rafi eventually joined in the Alignment party and formed the Labor party of today.
After holding a slew of Ministerial roles, Peres took the place of Yitzhak Rabin when he was forced to step down as Prime Minister due to a scandal. Peres was only acting Prime Minster at this time, but was able to lead Alignment to the first ever left wing defeat in 1977.
In 1984, Peres’ Alignment defeated Likud in general elections, but was uanble to form a majority coalition. Instead, Alignment and Likud joined into a “unity government” where Prime Minister was rotated between the two parties. This was where Peres was first officially made Prime Minister of Israel. He continued in this capacity until 1992 when Rabin beat Peres in a party leadership election.
After Rabin was assasinated in 1995, Peres regained party chairmanship of the new Labor party and held the Prime Minister position until 1996 when Benjamin Netanyahu led Likud to defeat Peres yet again.
In 2000, Peres was defeated in a run for President of Israel by Likud’s Moshe Katsav. He remained involved in Labor party politics until 2005, at which point he left Labor to join Ariel Sharon’s centrist Kadima party.
In June 2007, Peres was elected President of the State of Israel. He holds the position to this day.
Peres has written 11 books and maintains many projects in Israel including the well known Peres Center for Peace. He is a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his involvement in the Oslo Accords.
About the author
Eric is the founder and editor of IsraelSituation.com. He has been to Israel many times including a semester at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the former president of the Israel advocacy group at the University of Colorado and teaches about Israel and the Media at a local religious school.
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