https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-723757
Shimon Peres, an iconic Israeli leader until his death in 2016 at the age of 93, was the subject of a recent documentary sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. A prominent figure in the Labor Party, Peres held the positions of prime minister, foreign minister and president of Israel. He was best known for his role in developing Israel’s nuclear facility, as well as what was known as “the peace process” that became the basis for the Oslo Accords, for which he shared the Nobel Prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat.
The film and plans to name the International Convention Center in Jerusalem in his memory, however, have stirred controversy and criticism for what many believe to be a publicity campaign that ignores Peres’s true legacy: the Oslo Accords, and his failure to understand the PLO’s agenda to destroy Israel.
Shimon Peres’s legacy
In 1985, as prime minister, Peres arranged the release of over 1,000 convicted terrorists in what was called the “Ahmed Jabril deal,” named after the terrorist leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP). Less than three years later in December 1987, many of the terrorists led a surge of violence, known as the First Intifada, and others joined terrorist organizations.
Before the 1992 elections, Peres’s deputy Yossi Beilin concluded secret deals with the PLO in which the Israeli leaders pledged to grant it self-rule and quasi-state status. This became the basis of the Oslo Accords. The secret content of these negotiations has never been revealed.
