Tributes to Shimon Peres poured in from global leaders on Wednesday, as Israel mourned one of its founders and its longest-serving international statesman.
U.S. President Barack Obama issued a long tribute to Mr. Peres, who served as prime minister, president and foreign minister in a career that spanned seven decades. The Israeli statesman died Tuesday at 93, after complications from a stroke suffered earlier this month. “Perhaps because he had seen Israel surmount overwhelming odds, Shimon never gave up on the possibility of peace between Israelis, Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors,” Mr. Obama said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a special cabinet meeting in honor of the Israeli statesman. “Shimon Peres didn’t stop attempting to achieve peace and to believe in peace,” he said.
Later in his life, Mr. Peres was known internationally for his tireless efforts to advance a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
There was no immediate reaction from Palestinian leaders to Mr. Peres’s death.
Former President Bill Clinton, who with Mr. Peres helped oversee the Oslo Accords that led to award of the prize, called the former Israeli leader a “genius” with a “big heart.”
“His critics called him a dreamer,” Mr. Clinton said in a statement. “That he was—a lucid, eloquent dreamer until the very end.”
The Nobel Prize organization in Stockholm posted a link to what it called Mr. Peres’s “powerful” Nobel Lecture from 1994. “Shimon Peres was a man of brave vision and deep wisdom. Israel at its very best. And what it ought to be. Will be deeply missed,” tweeted Carl Bildt , who was Sweden’s prime minister in that year.
Current European leaders, who have increasingly sought to play a larger role in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, also paid tribute to Mr. Peres.
“With the death of Shimon Peres, Israel loses one of its most illustrious statesmen, one of the most ardent defenders of peace and a faithful friend of France,” said French Prime Minister François Hollande.
“He never ceased to defend the logic of [the Oslo accords], seeing the establishment of a Palestinian state as the sole guarantee of a secure future for Israel.”
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said she was “heartbroken” at Mr. Peres’s passing, calling him a “man of peace, immense source of inspiration.” She also issued a message to the current Israeli and Palestinian leadership, saying on Twitter that the “only way to honour memory is heading towards 2 States.”
Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had also worked with Mr. Peres to advance a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, mourned the “political giant.” “A statesman who will rank as one of the foremost of this era or any era, and someone I loved deeply,” he said on Twitter.
Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni also called him a tireless supporter of the two-state solution. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi tweeted that he was “a great man of our time, a man of peace.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader of the House of Representatives, also issued tributes.
At home, Israeli officials mourned their longest-standing statesman, with President Reuven Rivlin saying he would return early from a state visit to Ukraine to mourn the loss of Mr. Peres.
“This is a sad day for the Israeli people, and the State of Israel. We all bow our heads at hearing of his passing,” he said.
For many Israelis and Palestinians, Mr. Peres was a divisive figure. He initially supported the construction of settlements in the West Bank following the capture of the territory by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. But he later advocated the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank.
Mr. Peres was also instrumental in building Israel’s secret nuclear program, which some domestic critics claim fueled regional instability.
After his stroke, Arab member of Israeli parliament Basel Ghattas sparked widespread condemnation after he called Mr. Peres a warmonger who had blood on his hands for his role in creating Israel. Mr. Peres “was one of the pillars of the Zionist colonial project, and one of the most despicable, cruel, radical and long-lived (of its leadership),” Mr. Ghattas said on Facebook.
