Shimon Peres

Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres; Hebrew: שמעון פרס; born Szymon Perski; 2 August 1923) is a Polish-born Israeli statesman. He was the ninth President of Israel from 2007 to 2014. Peres served twice as the Prime Minister of Israel and twice as Interim Prime Minister, and he was a member of 12 cabinets in a political career spanning over 66 years. Peres was elected to the Knesset in November 1959 and, except for a three-month-long hiatus in early 2006, served continuously until 2007,...
NationalityIsraeli
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth2 August 1923
CountryIsrael
For me, dreaming is simply being pragmatic.
It's a morality that keeps humans human.
He taught me literature, and he actually taught me how to read. He was my personal mentor.
The Holocaust is a great warning to us all. We shall never forget our sisters and brothers. We have to ensure it is not repeated and to ensure we never go back to the days when humans behaved as beasts. Forgetfulness is a menace, we must remember.
Any assassination is an assassination. It's cold, it's terrible. I'm against any capital punishment. Only the Lord has the right to take away life because he's the giver of life. And assassination stands against democracy, against civilization, against a civilized life of people. Alas, the situation in Lebanon is very chaotic and many innocent people lost their lives because they have a state within a state, an army within an army and the respect for life is not high enough.
In the past, most wars were motivated by the idea of nationhood. Today, however, wars are incited above all using religion as an excuse.
We have to take care about nature as much as nature is taking care about us. Nature is very kind with us. And if you want to enjoy the gifts of nature and the promises of nature, we have to defer to nature and its needs, its rules, its norms.
The foes now are universal - poverty, famine, religious radicalization, desertification, drugs, proliferation of nuclear weapons, ecological devastation. They threaten all nations, just as science and information are the potential friends of all nations. Classical diplomacy and strategy were aimed at identifying enemies and confronting them. Now they have to identify dangers, global or local, and tackle them before they become disasters.
The Middle East is replete with both new and old threats. One should not underestimate these threats, but not be alarmed by them either. Israel is stronger today than ever.
Israel's doors are open to collaboration with Bulgaria.
Bringing an end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians may help the young Arab generation to realise their aspirations. Israel is more than willing to offer our experience in building a modern economy in spite of limited resources to the whole region.
Television has made dictatorship impossible but democracy unbearable.
Bulgaria is a true friend of Israel, that stood up to save the Jewish people 70 years ago in Europe, and who stood by throughout the terror attack that took place in Burgas last July.
Now, I learned soon enough, that among the three, two don't trust the third one - the third one is the government. Both industry and unions feel the government is a talking organization and a spending organization.