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Shimon Peres: Israel's Last Founding Father


(Wall Street Journal) Bret Stephens - Shimon Peres helped found Israel's Navy, established the Israeli arms-maker Rafael (today the maker of the Iron Dome air defense system), forged a strategic military partnership with France, and arranged the construction of Israel's first nuclear reactor - all by age 40. As minister of defense in the mid-1970s, he urged a reluctant Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to order the daring rescue of Israeli hostages at the Entebbe airport in Uganda, proving that a courageous democracy could defeat terror. A decade later, as prime minister, he helped rescue Israel's economy from hyperinflation - while also rescuing thousands of Ethiopian Jews from persecution and starvation under the Communist Mengistu regime. His biggest dream was peace with Israel's Arab neighbors. But while Peres was eager to go from hawk to dove, Arafat could not rise from terrorist to statesman. The 1993 Oslo Accords collapsed in a wave of suicide bombings at the turn of the millennium.
2016-09-29 00:00:00
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