This is a fascinating first-hand highly readable account by the late President Shimon Peres, who completed this memoir only a few months before he died last year, of his direct part in the pivotal events in Israel's history as well as its future still to come. It is also an account that has global impact and so it is for general readers too. Peres was not only a key eyewitness to history from before and at Israel's founding at the side of Ben Gurion, but a true participator in key decisions for 70 years in public office, including Peace with Egypt and Peace with Jordan. He was and is, a Man for ALL Seasons - for all of us, whether we live in Israel or elsewhere around the globe, whether we are grandparents, parents or youngsters starting out in life. I found so many moving stories, great resolutions of seeming paradoxes and great quotes about leadership and technology, peace, listening and creative decision-making, about impossible chilling moments that turned into reality; about bold imagination, courage and persistence..
Here are a few examples from the book to wet your appetite, but you can skip these and go straight to the book! :) When 250 Air France passengers en route from Tel Aviv to Paris in 1976, were hijacked by the "Popular Front for the liberation of Palestine" and taken to Entebbe five thousand miles away in Uganda, the challenges to rescue the hostages where massive and the stakes even more so. Peres gives a gripping account of how the terrible event unfolded from start to finish. The risks involved in rescuing the hostages where massive and the stakes even more so. Peres gives a gripping account of how this amazing (finally successful) mission unfolded starting with real despair and Peres responding to the best and brightest teams summoned to work on this, when they said to his question of what plans they had, "We have no plans", - "Then I want to hear the plans you don't have!" In regard to his imagination and decision to have Israel build its own nuclear deterrent, he wrote - I told many people often that "I built Dimona (Israel's Nuclear capability) with one purpose - not to fight a war, but to prevent one. It was not the reactor that mattered but the echo it generated". Peres also recounts in riveting detail about the many ground breaking Peace efforts he made and the actual living effects of Oslo to this day. He is in fact a realist about Peace-making - "It is not a simple endeavor. It is a constant struggle. But its complexity should not overshadow its purpose.....We have yet to win the victory to which we have aspired: release from the need to win victories". There is a quote from an old Palestinian leader with Arafat who won the joint Nobel Prize for Peace with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, in 1994, that struck me - "We have learned that our rejection of you will not bring us freedom; And you have learned that control of us will not bring you security. We must live side by side in peace."
A final and most important revelation about this book is understanding Shimon's grasp of science and technology and his true love of young people and understanding of their desires and motivations. His founding of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in 1996 was because he believed that peace comes between peoples not just at government level. He clearly worked like a trojan with his team there on Peace building, business partnerships, agriculture and healthcare. But he also recognized the true 21st century challenges as universal - poverty and famine, radicalization and terror; a decline in tolerance and a rise in nationalism. My final takeaway from this read is that like the quote on Sala Burton's grave in the Presidio of San Francisco, CA, "One must care about a world one will not live to see. She Cared." Shimon Peres clearly cared in spades, but he also clearly had a vision for the future that informed his present. He took great risks "for the sake of tomorrow's chance". I think left behind a clear and great legacy, and a super book.
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