“Shimon Peres: Israel's warrior for peace dies” (September 28, 2016)

This is how CNN headlined its story about the death of Shimon Peres, the former president of the Zionist entity called Israel.

This headline caught my eye and made me eager to read the article. It was so intriguing because it was contradictory: It just did not make sense to me how one can make war to reach peace!

While reading the article, I learned that Peres was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his part in finalizing the Oslo Peace Accords. Aha, I thought, so this is where “peace” came in. The writers were laboring under the misperception that the accords actually were designed to create a just peace. The truth is that the Oslo Accords are widely acknowledged by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as formalizing their occupation and creating a Palestinian Authority that is in actuality an “enforcer” of Israeli control. (A case in point: Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, attended the funeral to offer his condolences on the death of Peres, who pushed so hard for the expansion of the illegal settlements.)

As for the “warrior” part, I discovered as I read that Peres was in charge of purchasing weapons for the Zionist military in 1948, and that “he founded the country’s nuclear program.” In other words, Peres was a main contributor to the destruction and theft of my homeland—Palestine, the humiliation and killing of my people, and the instability of my life as a perpetual refugee in Lebanon.

Maybe leading wars makes someone a warrior, but certainly not a warrior for peace. Twenty-two years later, instead of living in peace, Palestinians continue to suffer, struggle, die and cry under the boot of occupation.

Peace and war do not harmonize with one another, and neither do Palestine and Israel!

Posted October 2, 2016