Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres; Hebrew: שמעון פרס; born Szymon Perski; 2 August 1923) is a Polish-born Israeli statesman. He was the ninth President of Israel from 2007 to 2014. Peres served twice as the Prime Minister of Israel and twice as Interim Prime Minister, and he was a member of 12 cabinets in a political career spanning over 66 years. Peres was elected to the Knesset in November 1959 and, except for a three-month-long hiatus in early 2006, served continuously until 2007,...
NationalityIsraeli
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth2 August 1923
CountryIsrael
Television has made dictatorship impossible but democracy unbearable.
The internet, Facebook and Twitter have created mass communications and social spaces that regimes cannot control.
In any democratic country you have more than one view.
There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary.
I am leaving the office but am not leaving the battle for peace.
The Holocaust is a great warning to us all. We shall never forget our sisters and brothers. We have to ensure it is not repeated and to ensure we never go back to the days when humans behaved as beasts. Forgetfulness is a menace, we must remember.
The United States is the only power in history that became great by giving and not by taking. I think the crisis was when the United States had more money than ideas. Money doesn't produce money. Ideas produce money.
You can kill a thousand; you can bring an end to life; you cannot kill an idea.
From my earliest youth, I have known that while one is obliged to plan with care the stages of one's journey, one is entitled to dream, and keep dreaming, of its destination.
I think peace should be done not only among governments but among people. It was impossible before the Facebook.
For me, dreaming is simply being pragmatic.
A solution of two national states - a Jewish state, Israel; an Arab state, Palestine. The Palestinians are our closest neighbors. I believe they may become our closest friends.
If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact - not to be solved, but to be coped with over time.
We should use our imagination more than our memory.