Many Palestinians will not remember Shimon Peres as a man of peace

A long list of world leaders offered warm words of condolence after the passing of Shimon Peres on Wednesday. Among them was Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas sent a letter to the family of the former Israeli prime minister “expressing his sadness and sorrow,” according to a statement quoted by the official Palestinian Authority news agency, WAFA. 

“Peres was a partner in making the brave peace with the martyr Yasser Arafat and prime minister [Yitzhak] Rabin, and made unremitting efforts to reach a lasting peace from the Oslo agreement until the final moments of his life,” Abbas was quoted as saying in the Times of Israel.  

Many Palestinians, however, will not remember Peres as a man of peace.

“He is the founder of the Israeli settlement enterprise,” says Sam Bahour, a Palestinian American businessman who lives in Ramallah, in the West Bank.

Bahour left Youngstown, Ohio, where he grew up, in the early 1990s. It was a time of great hope for the prospects of peace between Palestinians and Israelis. There was a buzz in the air, Bahour says, created in large part by the Oslo peace process that Peres helped make possible with Rabin and Arafat. 

“I actually went to Tel Aviv University in Israel and got an MBA,” Bahour says. “Peres was there when I got the MBA and shook my hand after the graduation ceremony.” 

But then, one night in early November of 1995, a Jewish extremist murdered Rabin.

“He and Peres were at the same event, and that was the end of what I believe [was] the buzz. And from that point on, it’s been a downhill spiral,” Bahour says.

Now, when Bahour thinks about the legacy of Peres, he says three things come to mind first and foremost.

“[Peres is] someone that I can’t forget was part of establishing the Israeli military. He was part of the founding, if not the father, of the Israeli nuclear program. And [he was] someone who played a major role in the military and killed a lot of [Palestinians] under his command,” Bahour says. 

When it came to peace, Bahour adds that Peres could certainly talk the talk. 

“He had become a professional fig leaf for the Israeli society. He would cover up the war crimes that went on and continue to go on, by putting on this international talk about the need for peace and the desire for peace,” Bahour says. 

“But he did not enact policy on the ground. He did not restrain the military when he could, just the opposite. What he did is more important than what he said."

One Palestinian official who spoke with The World on Wednesday said the death of Peres came long after the death of the peace process itself, and that Peres was largely responsible for beautifying what is a very ugly reality for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The official would not talk on the record because he was not authorized to do so.

However a spokesman from the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, was willing to go on the record.

“Shimon Peres was the last of the generation of co-founders of the Israeli occupation and therefore his death represents the end of an era in the history of occupation and the beginning of a new era of weakness and retreat for the Zionist entity,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said to Reuters.

“We say that the Palestinian people are happy at the departure of this criminal who had been involved in many crimes and in the bloodshed of the Palestinian people,” Abu Zuhri said.

Bahour says the deaths of Palestinians will always be part of Peres’ legacy.

“No one likes to see anyone pass away, regardless of the politics,” Bahour says. “However, we have to understand that this is a 50-year military occupation.” 

For Israelis, Peres is a complicated figure. While much of the Israeli public admires the lofty goals that Peres so eloquently spoke about for much of his political life, this great statesman was never able to turn that admiration into electoral success.

This might just add to the skepticism of Palestinians. If a political giant like Peres could not bring about "a new Middle East," it is hard to see who can.