This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/world/middleeast/world-leaders-react-to-shimon-peres.html

The article has changed 9 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 7 Version 8
World Leaders Issue Emotional Tributes to Shimon Peres Obama and Bill Clinton to Travel to Israel to Honor Shimon Peres
(about 5 hours later)
JERUSALEM — The death of Shimon Peres prompted an outpouring of emotional tributes from around the world even as Israel woke up Wednesday morning to discover that a figure integral to the history of the state was gone. JERUSALEM — World leaders made plans to converge on Israel to pay tribute to Shimon Peres, the Nobel Prize-winning former prime minister who died on Wednesday, focusing renewed attention on his quest for peace in a fractured land that fell well short of his dreams.
President Obama, who awarded Mr. Peres the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, issued an unusually long and personal statement, recalling their conversations in detail and calling him “the essence of Israel itself.” Presidents, prime ministers and a prince accepted invitations to the funeral on Friday for Mr. Peres, who transformed himself from a polarizing figure to perhaps Israel’s most renowned elder statesman.
Mr. Obama remembered first meeting Mr. Peres, who served twice as prime minister, while he was a United States senator and said his death should renew a commitment to peace. Mr. Peres, 93, who slipped away just over two weeks after what his doctor called “a massive stroke,” emerged as a symbol of what might have been, after the peace accords he helped broker in the 1990s failed to bring lasting change.
“A light has gone out, but the hope he gave us will burn forever,” Mr. Obama said. “Shimon Peres was a soldier for Israel, for the Jewish people, for justice, for peace and for the belief that we can be true to our best selves — to the very end of our time on Earth and in the legacy that we leave to others.” The United States will send a delegation including President Obama, former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State John Kerry, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.
A spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Emmanuel Nahshon, said that Mr. Obama, former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, would attend Mr. Peres’s funeral on Friday. But the ministry mistakenly reported that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president and a former secretary of state, would attend. With just weeks until the election, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign said she would not attend.
The elder former President George Bush, who worked with Mr. Peres during his administration, praised an “innate humanity” that inspired many around the world. “By his unyielding determination and principle, Shimon Peres time and again helped guide his beloved country through the crucible of mortal challenge,” Mr. Bush said in a statement. Mr. Obama, who has been at odds with the current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the logjammed peace process, made clear that he saw the moment as an opportunity to prod Israel to fulfill Mr. Peres’s legacy.
A former political opponent, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a broadcast statement, “Along with all the citizens of Israel, the entire Jewish people and many others around the world, I bow my head in memory of our beloved Shimon Peres, who was treasured by the nation.” “I can think of no greater tribute to his life than to renew our commitment to the peace that we know is possible,” Mr. Obama said in a statement.
Mr. Netanyahu added: “As a man of vision, he lifted his gaze to the future. As a man of security and defense, he buttressed Israel’s might in many ways, some of which, even now, cannot be told. As a man of peace, he worked up until his last days for reconciliation with our neighbors for a better future for our children.” Some Israeli analysts said they expected Mr. Obama to use the occasion to make a new pitch for a peace settlement that would grant statehood to the Palestinians, but they doubted that Mr. Peres’s death would change the dynamic.
Israeli government ministers stood for a minute’s silence around the cabinet table shortly before 10:30 a.m., hours after Mr. Peres’s death. A portrait of the former prime minister, with a black band across one corner, was in the background. “Just by appearing here, he’ll probably want to make a speech that will mention the two-state solution,” said Zalman Shoval, a two-time Israeli ambassador to the United States and a member of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party. “On whom will this have an impact is another question. On the Israeli public? I don’t think so. On the Palestinians? They have their own problems.”
Mr. Netanyahu opened the special cabinet meeting, which was broadcast live on television, with the words, “This is the first day of the state of Israel without Shimon Peres.” Mr. Peres’s body will lie in state on Thursday at the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, and a funeral will be held the next day at Mount Herzl, the national cemetery.
“I admired him. I loved him,” Mr. Netanyahu said. Israeli government ministers stood for a moment of silence at a special cabinet meeting on Wednesday. A portrait of Mr. Peres, with a black band across one corner, was in the background.
Many others joined in the praise for Mr. Peres. The American Jewish Committee called him “one of the great visionary leaders of the Jewish people.” The Simon Wiesenthal Center said that “no Israeli leader was more respected.” The Anti-Defamation League praised “his clarion voice, statesmanship and wisdom.” Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, writing on Twitter, called Mr. Peres “a tireless advocate for Israel and a visionary crusader for peace.” Mr. Netanyahu, a former political opponent of Mr. Peres who unseated him as prime minister in 1996, opened the meeting with the words, “This is the first day of the state of Israel without Shimon Peres.”
Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who still works on Middle East issues, described Mr. Peres as “someone I loved deeply” and a mentor. “His intellect, his way with words that was eloquent beyond description, his command of the world and how it was changing were extraordinary,” Mr. Blair said. He added: “I admired him. I loved him.”
In Germany, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that “the world has lost a great statesman, Israel one of its founding fathers and Germany a highly treasured friend and partner.” But Mr. Peres was seen as a more complicated figure among Palestinians, who remembered his role in advancing settlements in the West Bank and ordering a brief but intense military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1996 that led to civilian deaths.
“With his firm will to connect the past and the future, Shimon Peres really worked for the unique friendship between Israel and Germany,” Mr. Steinmeier said in a statement. “Peres was an unrepentant war criminal and should be memorialized as such,” said Diana Buttu, a former adviser to the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.
Mr. Steinmeier recalled that Mr. Peres was the first Israeli prime minister to visit Berlin, then divided, in 1986 and that he described Israeli-German partnership in evocative and emotional terms in a speech to the German Parliament in 2010. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, sent a letter of condolence to the Peres family, saying Mr. Peres had been a “brave” partner in peace and had invested intensively in trying to realize the promise of the Oslo Accords of 1993 until his final moments.
“The bridge over the abyss was built with hurting hands and shoulders which could barely stand the weight of memory,” Mr. Peres said in that speech, “and it stands on strong, moral fundaments.” But leaders of Hamas, the more militant Palestinian group that controls Gaza and is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and other nations, alternately celebrated Mr. Peres’s death or complained that it allowed him to escape justice.
“He is a criminal who committed massacres against the Palestinian people and justified wars in Gaza,” Hazem Qasem, a spokesman for Hamas, said by telephone. “He is one of the founding leaders of the Israeli occupation that caused the displacement of millions of Palestinians.”
While Mr. Peres was a divisive figure for much of his long career, he came to enjoy support and admiration across the Israeli political spectrum by his final years.
Mr. Netanyahu visited Mr. Peres in the hospital during the last two weeks, as did the opposition leader Isaac Herzog. Mr. Clinton called the hospital for updates. Pope Francis prayed for his recovery.
Mr. Obama, who awarded Mr. Peres the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, called the former prime minister’s family after his death to convey his sympathies.
In an unusually long and personal statement, Mr. Obama described their first meeting, while he was a United States senator, and he described their conversations in detail. “Shimon was the essence of Israel itself,” he said.
“A light has gone out, but the hope he gave us will burn forever,” he added. “Shimon Peres was a soldier for Israel, for the Jewish people, for justice, for peace and for the belief that we can be true to our best selves — to the very end of our time on earth and in the legacy that we leave to others.”
Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who has worked for years on Middle East peace issues, described Mr. Peres as “someone I loved deeply” and as a mentor. “His intellect, his way with words that was eloquent beyond description, his command of the world and how it was changing were extraordinary,” he said.
In Germany, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier recalled that Mr. Peres became in 1986 the first Israeli prime minister to visit Berlin, then divided, and that he had described the Israeli-German partnership in evocative and emotional terms in a speech to the German Parliament in 2010.
Germany, Mr. Steinmeier added, “mourns a courageous and wise voice, who was a constant motivation” to do more.Germany, Mr. Steinmeier added, “mourns a courageous and wise voice, who was a constant motivation” to do more.
But Mr. Peres was seen as a more complicated figure among Palestinians, who remembered his role in advancing settlements in the West Bank and ordering a brief but intense military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1996 that led to civilian deaths. “Peres was an unrepentant war criminal and should be memorialized as such,” said Diana Buttu, a former adviser to the Palestinian leadership. Mr. Peres was surrounded by his children when he died. “My father used to say, and I quote, ‘You are only as great as the cause you serve,’ ” Chemi Peres, his son, told reporters afterward. “He had no interest other than serving the people of Israel in whom he had great faith and whom he loved dearly until his final breath.”
Just over two weeks ago, when Mr. Peres had the stroke that would ultimately kill him, an Arab member of the Israeli Parliament, Basel Ghattas, provoked a virulent debate when he said the former prime minister was a tyrant responsible for atrocities. “He is completely covered with our blood,” Mr. Ghattas said.
That touched off a backlash from other lawmakers, who denounced Mr. Ghattas as a self-promoter preaching hate.
While Mr. Peres was divisive during much of his long career, he came to enjoy support and admiration across the Israeli political spectrum by his final years.
Dr. Rafi Walden, Mr. Peres’s personal physician and son-in-law, said that on the day of his stroke, Mr. Peres had delivered a speech of more than an hour to an audience of industry and technology leaders, “as usual, without notes.”
Mr. Netanyahu visited Mr. Peres in the hospital during the last two weeks, as did the opposition leader Isaac Herzog. Mr. Clinton called the hospital for updates. Pope Francis prayed for his recovery, and Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, sent a personal note of praise.
The Israeli news media reported that Mr. Peres’s body would lie in state at the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, on Thursday.