Shimon Peres, the Realist Dreamer
Tel Aviv — There are very few people in the world whose lives align so effortlessly with the birth and being of their homeland. Shimon Peres, who has died at age 93, left an indelible mark on Israel — fighting for its independence, its security, and then, for its peace. It is difficult to imagine Israel’s past without him; it will be even harder to imagine its future.
In my family home, when I was growing up, Mr. Peres represented the “other side.” A man of the left, he was my parents’ political rival, very deeply a part of the Labor Party-dominated establishment that excluded them. Still, in many ways, it was his initiative, the Oslo Accords — a deal with the Palestine Liberation Organization that split Israeli society squarely in two — that moved me into the world of politics.