World leaders gather for a final farewell to former Israeli leader Shimon Peres
World leaders gather for a final farewell to former Israeli leader Shimon Peres : JERUSALEM — On a cloudless blue morning, an honor guard brought the flag-draped casket of Shimon Peres to the Mt. Herzl national cemetery on Friday as 100 world leaders and dignitaries from 70 countries began to assemble to bid a final farewell to the former Israeli leader and Nobel laureate.
Speaking in a rough voice, former president Bill Clinton praised Peres as a leader who experienced “crushing setbacks” — in politics, in his efforts for peace — and woke up “to seize the possibilities of each new day.”
Clinton knew Peres intimately over a quarter century. Alongside former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the two of them hammered out the details of the Oslo Accords, the frame that launched the now stalled peace process.
Clinton said Peres started life as Israel’s best student, became its best teacher “and ended his life as its greatest dreamer.”
The former president said it is not easy to move past defeat. “It must have been hard for him to do this,” he said. “First he had to master his own demons, forgive himself for his own mistakes and get over his own disappointments.”
This “monumental effort required that he grew his heart to be bigger than his brain.”
Clinton made an appeal to the audience at the funeral and watching on satellite broadcasts to “keep his gifts alive.” When the road ahead comes to a dead end, “when the hand of friendship meets only a cold stare, remember his luminous smile.” Then Clinton paused. “And imagine.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his eulogy in a mixture of Hebrew and English and said Peres, “soared to incredible heights. He was a great man of Israel and a great man of the world. We find hope in his legacy as does the world.”
“There is no secret that we were political rivals, but over the years we became good friends,” Netanyahu said. “Shimon and I disagreed about many things but that never overshadowed many warm discussions. Our friendship deepened with every meeting. In our discussions of a fundamental issue, security versus peace, Shimon told me, ‘Peace is the true security. If there will be peace, there will be security.’ I told him, security is essential for achieving peace and maintaining it.”
Netanyahu continued: “We went back and forth for hours. I came from the right, he from the left, I came again from the right, he again from the left. Like two prize fighters we put down our gloves. I saw his eyes and he saw in mine, the deep seated beliefs to ensure the future of Israel.”
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who gave his eulogy first, spoke in familiar terms “as one president to another.”
The Israeli president said Peres’s death represented “the end of the era of giants whose life stories are the stories of the Zionist movement and the State of the Israel.”
Rivlin also asked forgiveness from Peres for the times in their long career when they clashed. “Red lines were crossed between ideological disputes and words and deeds which had no place,” he said.
The state funeral for Peres is one of the largest in Israel since the 1995 burial of Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist who opposed the efforts of Rabin and Peres to make peace with the Palestinians.
Peres will be buried beside Rabin.
The main highway from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was closed to traffic Friday morning to allow incoming world leaders to quickly get into the holy city.
Among the guests from the U.S. delegation are President Obama and former president Bill Clinton. Both men, well-known for their oratory, will give eulogies. So will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and one of Peres’s old friends, the well-known Israeli writer Amos Oz.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas arrived and took a seat beside Donald Tusk, president of the European Council.
Peres, the 93-year-old former prime minister, president and Nobel Peace Prize winner died at a Tel Aviv hospital before dawn Wednesday from complications of a massive stroke suffered two weeks earlier.
Until the stroke earlier this month, Peres was keeping a full schedule, meeting with visiting U.S. senators, school children and activists. He was still enjoying the occasional glass of wine and working on a book. On his 93rd birthday, he joined Snapchat.
The ceremony is taking place on the hilltop with large television screens set amid the pine trees. Translation are provided for the guests in Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian and other languages.
More than 8,000 Israeli police officers were deployed on Friday and there was tight security with road closures.
Israel police chief Roni Alsheich told reporters Thursday that security forces carried out “preventative arrests” of several Jewish and Arab suspects “out of fear that they could cause problems at the state funeral.”
On Thursday, an estimated 35,000 Israelis, alongside tourists, diplomats, political leaders and a former U.S. president, climbed the hill to the Israel parliament to pay their respects before the flag-draped casket of Peres, one of last of the original founders of the Jewish state.
More than 90 delegations from 70 countries are expected at the funeral.
Jordan sent its deputy prime minister and former chief peace negotiator Jawad Anani. Jordan’s King Abdullah II sent a note of condolences, but no member of the royal family attended. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry came, but not the president, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. Turkey sent Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmet Yildiz.
In addition to Obama, the Israel Foreign Ministry reported that the national leaders and dignitaries who are expected to attend the Friday funeral include French President François Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
The British delegation is led by Charles Prince of Wales, alongside former British prime ministers David Cameron and Tony Blair, and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
Source : https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/obama-and-world-leaders-attend-funeral-for-israeli-leader-shimon-peres/2016/09/30/0d993382-868a-11e6-b57d-dd49277af02f_story.html
