September 30, 2016 | No Comments
Even in death, Shimon Peres seemed to advance the Middle East peace process — at least for a moment, anyway.
Attendees at Friday’s funeral for the late Israeli leader were abuzz when Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas arrived and shook hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was a rare personal encounter between the two men during a years-long pause in efforts to come to a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The two shook hands during a gathering that attracted a slew of world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, who still has a few months left to make a last-ditch effort to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
“Long time, long time,” Abbas told the Israeli leader, according to multiple media reports. Netanyahu is quoted as welcoming Abbas by saying: “It’s something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of us.”
Abbas was given a front-row seat during the service in Jerusalem, but he did not have a speaking role, according to media accounts. In his speech, Obama thanked the Palestinian leader for coming, saying his “presence here is a reminder of the unfinished business of peace.”
“The last of the founding generation is now gone,” Obama said of Peres. He added in Hebrew: “Toda rabah haver yakar,” or “thank you so much, dear friend.”
While Abbas was the only world leader Obama name-checked in his speech, Netanyahu mentioned an array of attendees but not the Palestinian leader. It was a sign of the sensitivities, among both Palestinians and Israelis, about Abbas’ presence at the funeral. His front-row seat was said to be the subject of heated negotiations.
Peres, a former Israeli prime minister and president, was a towering figure in the country’s seven-decade history. Although he helped build Israel’s military might and was hardly a pacifist, he nonetheless achieved his most enduring fame as a peacemaker, helping negotiate the Oslo Accords in 1993, for which he and others involved won the Nobel Peace Prize. Peres died Wednesday at age 93 after a stroke.
The U.S. delegation to the funeral included former President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State John Kerry and around 20 members of Congress. Other prominent Americans in the political sphere who attended included Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson and Democratic mega-donor Haim Saban.
French President Francois Hollande, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Britain’s Prince Charles also attended the funeral. It was Israel’s largest gathering of world leaders since 1995, when a funeral was held for assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Clinton, who had eulogized Rabin during the 1995 gathering, also spoke Friday.
Peres was a “wide champion of our common humanity,” the former U.S. president said. “He started life as Israel’s brightest student, became its best teacher and ended up its biggest dreamer.”
Netanyahu and Peres had long clashed politically; the former is far more hawkish. But Netanyahu nonetheless offered a kind remembrance of the late Israeli founding father, saying: “I loved you. We all loved you.”
No heads of state from Arab countries were believed to have attended. And while Abbas reportedly said he wanted to attend to pay his respects to a “brave” partner for peace, his decision was criticized in some corners of the Arab world. The Palestinian militant group Hamas blasted Abbas for offering condolences over Peres’ death, saying he “shows contempt for the blood of martyrs and the suffering of the Palestinian people,” Israeli media reported.
Abbas’ decision to attend the funeral also drew attention to the disintegration of the peace process, which has been on hold for more than two years and was struggling even prior to that.
There is some speculation that Obama will, in the final months of his presidency, take some steps to try to revive the peace effort, although his aides have ruled out the possibility of a peace deal before he leaves office.
Sources familiar with the subject have told POLITICO that Obama has a number of options at his disposal, though many could wind up being symbolic at best.
He could, for instance, give a major speech calling on the two sides to resume negotiations. He could use that speech, perhaps delivered at the United Nations, to lay out some parameters for a deal. Obama also could try to secure a U.N. resolution calling on Israel to stop building settlements in territories claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.
Even if both the Israelis and the Palestinians reject Obama’s calls, simply laying out a vision or parameters of some sort could in the long run have an impact on the process, said Ilan Goldenberg, a former Obama administration official now with the Center for a New American Security.
It’s not clear how far along Obama’s aides are in weighing such options, but it’s highly unlikely the president will deliberate on what to do, if anything, until after November’s presidential election.
“Ultimately it’s just up to one person. It’s up to the president,” Goldenberg said.