Hundreds gathered in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square Saturday night, marking 19 years since former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered at the site – in a memorial event in which the flag of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that has never renounced terrorism was waved.
Former President Shimon Peres made remarks at the event, saying “there are those who turned the word ‘peace’ into a derogatory word. And there are those for whom the expression ‘peace supporter’ is a term for hallucinatory people.”
“Against all those, I say here in a loud voice: one who despairs of peace – he is the hallucinatory one. One who submits and stops searching for peace – he is the naive one, he is the one who isn’t a patriot,” claimed Peres.
The statement comes after the Palestinian Authority (PA) signed a unity deal with Hamas torpedoing talks in April, after PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas encouraged terrorism in Jerusalem last month, and after the PA continues to laud terrorists.
MK Moti Yogev (Jewish Home) responded to Peres’s statements, saying “if the hallucinatory radical left continues to lead our memory of Yitzhak Rabin and his heritage to establish a Palestinian state in the land of Israel, then with their hands they are causing his memory to be the portion of the few who can scream for a Palestinian state, but their opinion is a minority opinion that is being eroded in the Israeli public.”
In Rabin Square, Peres wasn’t finished with his criticism, saying “there are all kinds of wise guys who instead of peace talk about ‘managing the conflict.’ This expression is appropriate in Gaza last summer. This expression is appropriate in Jerusalem in these days.”
“Can you manage a conflict? The conflict manages us. Yitzhak unfortunately can not be returned, but the hope for peace we must return,” said Peres.
Peres has a history of questionable comments. In January he voiced support for a plan to have Jews live under the PA in Judea and Samaria, saying “what’s this fear that’s struck us suddenly?They’ll kill Jews? Today?” He has also said PA recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is “unnecessary.”
His aspirations for “peace” backfired in September, when a youth goodwill soccer match between Israelis and Arab residents of Judea that Peres and his Center organized evoked outrage from the PA, including a campaign to track down the Arab organizers, and even condemnation as a “crime against humanity.”
Peres’s comments about Rabin, who pushed forward the 1993 Oslo Accords, contradicted with Yogev’s recollections.
“I remember Yitzhak Rabin positively, as a man of truth who sacrificed himself for the security of Israel from his youth, as a pioneer to Jerusalem in the War of Independence in the Harel Brigade, as IDF Chief of Staff in the Six Day War, defense minister and prime minister of Israel,” said Yogev.
The Oslo Accords gave the PA control in areas of Judea and Samaria, as well as giving the PA Security Forces weapons, and removing the terrorist status from Fatah and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It is also seen as having sparked the Second Intifada – or “Oslo War” as it is known – in 2000, and leading to the deaths of thousands of Israelis.
