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Shimon Peres – Biography
 Shimon Peres (Labour), Minister
of Foreign Affairs, was born in Poland in 1923 and immigrated
with his family as a child. He studied at the Ben Shemen
Agricultural School, and was one of the founders of Kibbutz
Alumot in the Jordan Valley. In 1943, he was elected secretary of
the Hano'ar Ha'oved youth.
In Israel's War of Independence, Mr. Peres was responsible for
arms purchases and recruitment, and in 1948 was appointed head of
the naval services. In 1949, he headed the Defense Ministry's
procurement delegation to the United States.
Mr. Peres was appointed Deputy Director-General of the Ministry
of Defense in 1952 and served as its Director-General between
1953-1959.
Mr. Peres has been a Member of the Knesset since 1959 and served
as Deputy Minister of Defense from 1959-1965. In 1965, he left
the Mapai Labour Party with Ben-Gurion and became
Secretary-General of Rafi. In 1968, he was instrumental in
bringing Rafi back to Mapai to form the Israel Labour
Party.
Mr. Peres became Minister of Immigrant Absorption in 1969 and
served as Minister of Transport and Communications from
1970-1974. In 1974 he was appointed Minister of Information and
later, Minister of Defense (1974-1977). The highlight of his
tenure as Defense Minister was the Entebbe rescue
operation.
In 1977, Mr. Peres was elected chairman of the Labour Alignment.
In 1984, a National Unity Government was formed, and he served
first as its Prime Minister (1984-1986), and then as Vice Premier
and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1986-1988). During his term as
Prime Minister, Israel withdrew from Lebanon and an economic
stabilization plan was implemented.
In 1978, Mr. Peres was elected Vice-President of the Socialist
International.
In the National Unity government (1988-1990), Shimon Peres served
as Vice Premier and Minister of Finance. From 1990-1992, he led
the opposition in the Knesset.
Mr. Peres began his second tenure as Israel's Minister of Foreign
Affairs on July 13, 1992 with the establishment of the new,
Labour-led government.
Shimon Peres has authoured the following books: The Next
Step (1965); David's Sling (1970); And Now
Tomorrow (1978); From These Men (1979):;Entebbe
Diary (1991); The New Middle East (1993); Battling
for Peace (1995). He has written hundreds of articles and
essays.
Shimon Peres is married to Sonya (nee Gelman); they have two sons
and a daughter - and six grandchildren.
From Les Prix
Nobel 1994.
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Selected Bibliography
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| General |
| Corbin, Jane. The Norway
Channel. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1994. By BBC
reporter with good access to the negotiators. |
| Freedman, Robert Owen, ed. Israel
under Rabin. Boulder: Westview, 1995. |
| Laqueur, Walter, and Barry Rubin, eds.
The Israel-Arab Reader. A Documentary History of the
Middle East Conflict. 5th rev. ed., PB, New York:
Penguin, 1995. |
| Makovsky, David. Making Peace with
the P.L.O.: The Rabin Government’s Road to the Oslo
Accord. Boulder: Westview, 1996. By a diplomatic
correspondent with critical perspective. Includes many
documents. |
| Peleg, Ilan, ed. Middle East Peace
Process: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Albany, NY:
State University of N.Y. Press, 1998. |
| Perry, Mark. A Fire in Zion. The
Israeli-Palestinian Search for Peace. New York: Morrow,
1994. The background since 1988. By a well-informed
journalist. |
| Said, Edward W. Peace and Its
Discontents. Essays on Palestine in the Middle East
Process. New York: Vintage PB, 1995. Eloquent critique of
the Oslo Accords by a leading Palestinian-American
intellectual. |
| Savir, Uri. The Process: 1,100 Days
That Changed the Middle East. New York: Random House
1998. Hopeful inside view by chief Israeli negotiator. |
| Tessler, Mark. A History of the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Bloomington, Indiana:
Indiana University Press, 1994. PB, scholarly and
balanced. |
| Quandt, William B. The Peace
Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
since 1967. Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1993. |
| |
| By Shimon Peres |
| Peres, Shimon, with Arye Naor. The
New Middle East. New York: Holt, 1993. His vision for the
reconstruction of the region. |
| Peres, Shimon. Battling for Peace.
A Memoir. Edited by David Landau. New York: Random House,
1995. |
| Peres, Shimon, and Robert Littell.
For the Future of Israel. Baltimore, Md. and London:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Conversations in
1996–7 with the novelist and former correspondent. |
From
Nobel Lectures, Peace 1991-1995, Editor Irwin Abrams, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1999
This autobiography/biography was written
at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les
Prix Nobel/Nobel
Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted
by the Laureate. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
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