Will Shimon Peres become our country's ninth president?
Photo: Gil Yochanan
Record book president
Presidential candidate Peres fit to head 'State of Guinness' but not Israel
Will Shimon Peres become our country's ninth president? Hard to tell. Either the unbelievable will happen, or Reuven Rivlin will join the long list of those who defeated Peres – ranging from Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir to Moshe Katsav and Amir Peretz.
Beyond that, it is hard to tell whether he will be a fitting president for our country, yet it is clear he would be able to successfully serve as the president of the "State of Guinness," as he has broken several Guinness records at several distinguished junctions thus far.
First, he is the oldest candidate seeking to head a state in the Western world in the last decades. There were some very old people who served as heads of state, but they were much younger than Peres: Reagan was America's oldest president in the last century – he retired when he was 78; Churchill was forced to resign in 1955 in Britain when he was 81.
Even West Germany's Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who was an exemplary model for Peres, was forced to relinquish his desire to serve as president of the German republic because of the scathing public criticism over his age. That happened in 1959, when he was 83 years old, a year younger than Peres today.
Secondly, we are talking about a person who is willing to do anything in order to reach a post that boasts true power or virtual authority. It is difficult to find a person whose aspiration for power and honor is as grand as Peres'. In order to realize his aspirations, he is willing to do two things: The first one is the willingness to cross all red lines, and the example for this is his conduct in 1990 in what has become known as the "dirty deal."
At the time he was willing to give virtually anything to Knesset Member Avraham Tamir to elicit the latter's support for his virtual government and depose of Yitzhak Shamir.
Unperturbed by insults
The other thing Peres is willing to do is even more depressing: His stunning ability to absorb all insults in order to stay close to power. An example of this was his ability to swallow the insult of being appointed "minister of regional development" – a non-existent and ridiculous post – in order to join a government headed by Ehud Barak, who ignored him and held him in contempt.
The latest example is quite grave: The ceremony of his "selection" as a presidential candidate on behalf of the Kadima party. He was sitting between two people – Ehud Olmert, who played a key role in the battle against him in 1996 and who as mayor of Jerusalem declared that "Peres will divide Jerusalem," and Tzachi Hanegbi, who for many years viewed Peres as a symbol of defeatism and weakness of mind. It was so sad to see both of them crowning him.
Thirdly, Peres' phenomenal ability to create a picture that is entirely different than his true path: He actually wishes to quit politics in order to play with his new grandson and take care of his wife, Sonia, but as a true man of conscience he is forced to "comply with the party's decision." It happened when he lost the Labor party primaries to Amir Peretz, and it's happening again now, where after serious "deliberations" he was forced to accept his "comrades'" request.
We can therefore reach the conclusion that Peres would be an excellent president in the State of Guinness, but not in the State of Israel.
Prof. Weitz heads the Land of Israel Studies Department at the University of Haifa
