[[{"content_id":"129752","domain_id":"0","lang_id":"en","portal_id":"2","owner_id":"29","user_id":"1","view_accesslevel_id":"0","edit_accesslevel_id":"0","delete_accesslevel_id":"0","editor_id":"0","content_title":"War criminal whose victims West ignored","content_number":"0","content_date_event":"2016-09-29 20:05:09","content_summary":"Shimon Peres epitomized the disparity between Israel\u2019s image in the West and the reality of its bloody, colonial policies","content_summary_fill":"0","content_body":"Middle East Monitor wrote:\r\n\r\n\tShimon Peres, who passed away Wednesday aged 93 after suffering a stroke on 13 September, epitomized the disparity between Israel’s image in the West and the reality of its bloody, colonial policies in Palestine and the wider region.\r\n\t\r\n\tPeres was born in modern day Belarus in 1923, and his family moved to Palestine in the 1930s.\r\n\t\r\n\tAs a young man, Peres joined the Haganah, the militia primarily responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages in 1947-49, during the Nakba.\r\n\t\r\n\tDespite the violent displacement of the Palestinians being a matter of historical record, Peres has always insisted that Zionist forces “upheld the purity of arms” during the establishment of the State of Israel.\r\n\t\r\n\tIndeed, he even claimed that before Israel existed, “there was nothing here”.\r\n\t\r\n\tOver seven decades, Peres served as prime minister (twice) and president, though he never actually won a national election outright.\r\n\t\r\n\tHe was a member of 12 cabinets and had stints as defense, foreign and finance minister.\r\n\t\r\n\tHe is perhaps best known in the West for his role in the negotiations that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords which won him, along with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, the Nobel Peace Prize.\r\n\t\r\n\tYet for Palestinians and their neighbors in the Middle East, Peres’ track record is very different from his reputation in the West as a tireless “dove”.\r\n\t\r\n\tThe following is by no means a comprehensive summary of Peres’ record in the service of colonialism and apartheid.\r\n\t\r\n\tBetween 1953 and 1965, Peres served first as director general of Israel’s defense ministry and then as deputy defense minister.\r\n\t\r\n\tOn account of his responsibilities at the time, Peres has been described as “an architect of Israel’s nuclear weapons program” which, to this day, “remains outside the scrutiny of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).”\r\n\r\n\tIn 1975, as secret minutes have since revealed, Peres met with South African Defense Minister PW Botha and “offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime.”\r\n\r\n\tIn 1986, Peres authorized the Mossad operation that saw nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu kidnapped in Rome.\r\n\t\r\n\tTargeting Palestinian citizens Peres had a key role in the military regime imposed on Palestinian citizens until 1966, under which authorities carried out mass land theft and displacement.\r\n\t\r\n\tOne such tool was Article 125 which allowed Palestinian land to be declared a closed military zone.\r\n\t\r\n\tIts owners denied access, the land would then be confiscated as “uncultivated”.\r\n\t\r\n\tPeres praised Article 125 as a means to “directly continue the struggle for Jewish settlement and Jewish immigration.”\r\n\r\n\tAnother one of Peres’ responsibilities in his capacity as director general of the defense ministry was to “Judaise” the Galilee; that is to say, to pursue policies aimed at reducing the region’s proportion of Palestinian citizens compared to Jewish ones.\r\n\t\r\n\tIn 2005, as Vice Premier in the cabinet of Ariel Sharon, Peres renewed his attack on Palestinian citizens with plans to encourage Jewish Israelis to move to the Galilee.\r\n\t\r\n\tHis “development” plan covered 104 communities – 100 of them Jewish.\r\n\t\r\n\tIn secret conversations with US officials that same year, Peres claimed Israel had “lost one million dunams [1,000 square kilometres] of Negev land to the Bedouin”, adding that the “development” of the Negev and Galilee could “relieve what [he] termed a demographic threat.”\r\n\r\n\tSupporting illegal settlements in the West Bank While Israel’s settlement project in the West Bank has come to be associated primarily with Likud and other right-wing nationalist parties, it was in fact Labor which kick-started the colonization of the newly-conquered Palestinian territory – and Peres was an enthusiastic participant.\r\n\t\r\n\tDuring Peres’ tenure as defense minister, from 1974 to 1977, the Rabin government established a number of key West Bank settlements, including Ofra, large sections of which were built on confiscated privately-owned Palestinian land.\r\n\t\r\n\tHaving played a key role in the early days of the settlement enterprise, in more recent years, Peres has intervened to undermine any sort of measures, no matter how modest, at sanctioning the illegal colonies – always, of course, in the name of protecting “peace negotiations”.\r\n\t\r\n\tThe Qana massacre\r\n\r\n\tAs prime minister in 1996, Peres ordered and oversaw “Operation Grapes of Wrath” when Israeli armed forces killed some 154 civilians in Lebanon and injured another 351.\r\n\t\r\n\tThe operation, widely believed to have been a pre-election show of strength, saw Lebanese civilians intentionally targeted.\r\n\t\r\n\tAccording to the official Israeli Air Force website (in Hebrew, not English), the operation involved “massive bombing of the Shia villages in South Lebanon in order to cause a flow of civilians north, toward Beirut, thus applying pressure on Syria and Lebanon to restrain Hezbollah.”\r\n\r\n\tThe campaign’s most notorious incident was the Qana massacre, when Israel shelled a United Nations compound and killed 106 sheltering civilians.\r\n\t\r\n\tA UN report stated that, contrary to Israeli denials, it was “unlikely” that the shelling “was the result of technical and\/or procedural errors.”\r\n\r\n\tLater, Israeli gunners told Israeli television that they had no regrets over the massacre, as the dead were “just a bunch of Arabs”.\r\n\t\r\n\tAs for Peres, his conscience was also clean: “Everything was done according to clear logic and in a responsible way,” he said.\r\n\t\r\n\t“I am at peace.”\r\n\r\n\tGaza – defending blockade and brutality\r\n\r\n\tPeres came into his own as one of Israel’s most important global ambassadors in the last ten years, as the Gaza Strip was subjected to a devastating blockade and three major offensives.\r\n\t\r\n\tDespite global outrage at such policies, Peres has consistently backed collective punishment and military brutality.\r\n\t\r\n\tIn January 2009, for example, despite calls by “Israeli human rights organizations…for ‘Operation Cast Lead’ to be halted”, Peres described “national solidarity behind the military operation” as “Israel’s finest hour.”\r\n\r\n\tAccording to Peres, the aim of the assault “was to provide a strong blow to the people of Gaza so that they would lose their appetite for shooting at Israel.”\r\n\r\n\tDuring “Operation Pillar of Defense” in November 2012, Peres “took on the job of helping the Israeli public relations effort, communicating the Israeli narrative to world leaders,” in the words of Ynetnews.\r\n\t\r\n\tOn the eve of Israel’s offensive, “Peres warned Hamas that if it wants normal life for the people of Gaza, then it must stop firing rockets into Israel.”\r\n\r\n\tIn 2014, during an unprecedented bombardment of Gaza, Peres stepped up once again to whitewash war crimes.\r\n\t\r\n\tAfter Israeli forces killed four small children playing on a beach, Peres knew who to blame – the Palestinians: “It was an area that we warned would be bombed,” he said.\r\n\t\r\n\t“And unfortunately they didn’t take out the children.”\r\n\r\n\tThe choking blockade, condemned internationally as a form of prohibited collective punishment, has also been defended by Peres – precisely on the grounds that it is a form of collective punishment.\r\n\t\r\n\tAs Peres put it in 2014: “If Gaza ceases fire, there will be no need for a blockade.”","content_html":"

\r\n\tMiddle East Monitor wrote:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tShimon Peres, who passed away Wednesday aged 93 after suffering a stroke on 13 September, epitomized the disparity between Israel’s image in the West and the reality of its bloody, colonial policies in Palestine and the wider region.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tPeres was born in modern day Belarus in 1923, and his family moved to Palestine in the 1930s.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tAs a young man, Peres joined the Haganah, the militia primarily responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages in 1947-49, during the Nakba.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tDespite the violent displacement of the Palestinians being a matter of historical record, Peres has always insisted that Zionist forces “upheld the purity of arms” during the establishment of the State of Israel.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tIndeed, he even claimed that before Israel existed, “there was nothing here”.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tOver seven decades, Peres served as prime minister (twice) and president, though he never actually won a national election outright.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tHe was a member of 12 cabinets and had stints as defense, foreign and finance minister.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tHe is perhaps best known in the West for his role in the negotiations that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords which won him, along with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, the Nobel Peace Prize.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tYet for Palestinians and their neighbors in the Middle East, Peres’ track record is very different from his reputation in the West as a tireless “dove”.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tThe following is by no means a comprehensive summary of Peres’ record in the service of colonialism and apartheid.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tBetween 1953 and 1965, Peres served first as director general of Israel’s defense ministry and then as deputy defense minister.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tOn account of his responsibilities at the time, Peres has been described as “an architect of Israel’s nuclear weapons program” which, to this day, “remains outside the scrutiny of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tIn 1975, as secret minutes have since revealed, Peres met with South African Defense Minister PW Botha and “offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tIn 1986, Peres authorized the Mossad operation that saw nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu kidnapped in Rome.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tTargeting Palestinian citizens Peres had a key role in the military regime imposed on Palestinian citizens until 1966, under which authorities carried out mass land theft and displacement.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tOne such tool was Article 125 which allowed Palestinian land to be declared a closed military zone.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tIts owners denied access, the land would then be confiscated as “uncultivated”.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tPeres praised Article 125 as a means to “directly continue the struggle for Jewish settlement and Jewish immigration.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tAnother one of Peres’ responsibilities in his capacity as director general of the defense ministry was to “Judaise” the Galilee; that is to say, to pursue policies aimed at reducing the region’s proportion of Palestinian citizens compared to Jewish ones.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tIn 2005, as Vice Premier in the cabinet of Ariel Sharon, Peres renewed his attack on Palestinian citizens with plans to encourage Jewish Israelis to move to the Galilee.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tHis “development” plan covered 104 communities – 100 of them Jewish.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tIn secret conversations with US officials that same year, Peres claimed Israel had “lost one million dunams [1,000 square kilometres] of Negev land to the Bedouin”, adding that the “development” of the Negev and Galilee could “relieve what [he] termed a demographic threat.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tSupporting illegal settlements in the West Bank While Israel’s settlement project in the West Bank has come to be associated primarily with Likud and other right-wing nationalist parties, it was in fact Labor which kick-started the colonization of the newly-conquered Palestinian territory – and Peres was an enthusiastic participant.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tDuring Peres’ tenure as defense minister, from 1974 to 1977, the Rabin government established a number of key West Bank settlements, including Ofra, large sections of which were built on confiscated privately-owned Palestinian land.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tHaving played a key role in the early days of the settlement enterprise, in more recent years, Peres has intervened to undermine any sort of measures, no matter how modest, at sanctioning the illegal colonies – always, of course, in the name of protecting “peace negotiations”.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tThe Qana massacre<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tAs prime minister in 1996, Peres ordered and oversaw “Operation Grapes of Wrath” when Israeli armed forces killed some 154 civilians in Lebanon and injured another 351.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tThe operation, widely believed to have been a pre-election show of strength, saw Lebanese civilians intentionally targeted.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tAccording to the official Israeli Air Force website (in Hebrew, not English), the operation involved “massive bombing of the Shia villages in South Lebanon in order to cause a flow of civilians north, toward Beirut, thus applying pressure on Syria and Lebanon to restrain Hezbollah.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tThe campaign’s most notorious incident was the Qana massacre, when Israel shelled a United Nations compound and killed 106 sheltering civilians.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tA UN report stated that, contrary to Israeli denials, it was “unlikely” that the shelling “was the result of technical and\/or procedural errors.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tLater, Israeli gunners told Israeli television that they had no regrets over the massacre, as the dead were “just a bunch of Arabs”.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tAs for Peres, his conscience was also clean: “Everything was done according to clear logic and in a responsible way,” he said.
\r\n\t
\r\n\t“I am at peace.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tGaza – defending blockade and brutality<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tPeres came into his own as one of Israel’s most important global ambassadors in the last ten years, as the Gaza Strip was subjected to a devastating blockade and three major offensives.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tDespite global outrage at such policies, Peres has consistently backed collective punishment and military brutality.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tIn January 2009, for example, despite calls by “Israeli human rights organizations…for ‘Operation Cast Lead’ to be halted”, Peres described “national solidarity behind the military operation” as “Israel’s finest hour.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tAccording to Peres, the aim of the assault “was to provide a strong blow to the people of Gaza so that they would lose their appetite for shooting at Israel.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tDuring “Operation Pillar of Defense” in November 2012, Peres “took on the job of helping the Israeli public relations effort, communicating the Israeli narrative to world leaders,” in the words of Ynetnews.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tOn the eve of Israel’s offensive, “Peres warned Hamas that if it wants normal life for the people of Gaza, then it must stop firing rockets into Israel.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tIn 2014, during an unprecedented bombardment of Gaza, Peres stepped up once again to whitewash war crimes.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tAfter Israeli forces killed four small children playing on a beach, Peres knew who to blame – the Palestinians: “It was an area that we warned would be bombed,” he said.
\r\n\t
\r\n\t“And unfortunately they didn’t take out the children.”<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\tThe choking blockade, condemned internationally as a form of prohibited collective punishment, has also been defended by Peres – precisely on the grounds that it is a form of collective punishment.
\r\n\t
\r\n\tAs Peres put it in 2014: “If Gaza ceases fire, there will be no need for a blockade.”<\/p>","content_source":null,"content_url":null,"content_columns":"0","content_date_start":"2016-09-29 20:05:09","content_date_finish":"2016-09-29 20:05:09","content_date_register":"2016-09-29 20:05:09","content_date_last_edit":"0000-00-00 00:00:00","content_show_img":"1","content_show_details":"1","content_show_related_img":"1","content_show_slider":"1","content_show_title_slider":"1","content_comment":"0","content_score":"0","content_recorded":"0","content_confirmed":"1","content_status":"1","content_kind":"0","old_id":"128007","tag_id":null,"tag_word":null,"tag_service":null,"tag_total":null,"tag_soundex":null,"attach_token":"1332636002","attach_date_register":"2016-09-29 20:05:15","attach_id":"137150","attach_file_ext":"jpg","attach_file_header":"image\/jpeg","attach_img_type":"2","attach_img_width":"390","attach_img_height":"250","attach_file_media":"1","attach_show_watermark":"0","score_average":null,"score_count":null,"score_date_last":null,"visit_count":"741","visit_date_last":"2025-05-09 08:13:22","attach_title":"War criminal whose victims West ignored","node_title":"Commentaries","ot_node_left_right":"[{\"node_id\":134, \"left\":25, \"right\":26}]"}]]