From Oslo to Gaza: Post Shimon Peres Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PPTSS): Coping with Elusive Peres Promise of Peace.

Shimon Peres leaves the presidency of Israel, after promising the world an era of peace in the Middle East.

Peres reiterated his belief in peace at his final visit at the White House in June, when he proclaimed that Abbas, now serving the tenth year of his four year term as PA president, was a partner for peace.

Peres’s proclamation was based on the following ten illusions that Peres had implanted in the public peace process mindset, as if…

1. The PA never make an accord with Hamas, defined as a terrorist organization

2. The PA ratified the Oslo accord with Israel, which it never did.

3. The PA changed its charter to destroy Israel, which it never did.

4. The PA adopted a peace curriculum, which it never has done.

5. The PA renounced the “right of return”, which it has never done.

6. The PA settled for a Palestinian state at the 1967 lines, which it never did.

7. The PA denounced “armed struggle” to liberate all of Palestine, which it never did.

8. The PA Arabic language media conveyed a message of peace, which it never did.

9. The PA recognized the state of Israel as a Jewish state, which it has never has.

10. Abbas renounced his PHD that “Zionists assisted Nazis”, which he never did.

Yet until the Gaza aerial attacks struck every nook and cranny of Israel, the people of Israel, suffering from PPTSS, believed the Peres narrative:

1. Peres adopted the Arab League position, that the PLO represents the Palestinian Arab people.

2 Peres dropped negative information on the PLO from the Israeli government.

3.Peres claimed that the country had an obsession with Kassam missiles, which were not lethal

4. Peres falsifed the biography he gave to the Knesset,claiming that he had served in the IDF

5. Peres refused to answer questions about incitement which emanated from Arafat & Abbas.

6. Peres claimed that videos of Arafat’s speeches in Arabic were doctored

7. Peres accepted grants from 18 governments for the Peres Center for Peace

8. Peres benefited from his financial investments in PalTel, the Palestinian telephone company.

9. Peres did not deny providing gratuities in order to receive the Nobel Peace Prize

10. Peres claimed that he was in contact with Abbas for 30 years- which meant that Peres was in contact with the PLO ten years before it was legal to do so.

IDEALIST OR ILLUSIONIST?

As a high school student, I met Senator Robert Kennedy on one occasion, in May 1967, at a time when RFK pondered his position on the Vietnam War.

As he was making his decision, Kennedy said that he was thinking of the legacy of the English statesman, Edmund Burke, who once said that he would rather be an “idealist without illusions than to be an illusionist without ideals”.

Time will tell if Shimon Peres led the people of Israel as an idealist or as an illusionist.

David Bedein