Shimon Peres was an Israeli politician who held numerous prominent positions throughout his 70-year political career. Born on August 2, 1923, as Szymon Perski, Peres served as the eighth prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and again from 1995 to 1996, and as the ninth president of Israel from 2007 to 2014.
Peres was a member of twelve cabinets and represented five political parties, including Mapai, Rafi, the Alignment, Labor, and Kadima. He was elected to the Knesset in November 1959 and served continuously, except for a brief interregnum in 2006, until his election as president in 2007.
With a career spanning 48 years, Peres is the longest-serving member in the Knesset's history. He was also the world's oldest head of state at the time of his retirement in 2014, and was considered the last link to Israel's founding generation.
Peres was known for his exceptional oratory skills and was chosen as a protégé by David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding father. He began his political career in the late 1940s, holding various diplomatic and military positions during and after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
Peres held several high-level government positions, including deputy director general of defense in 1952 and director general from 1953 to 1959. He played a significant role in the historic negotiations on the Protocol of Sèvres in 1956 and led the negotiations with U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963, resulting in the sale of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel.
As foreign minister under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Peres engineered the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty and won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize together with Rabin and Yasser Arafat for the Oslo Accords peace talks with the Palestinian leadership.
Peres also founded the Peres Center for Peace in 1996, which aims to promote lasting peace and advancement in the Middle East through tolerance, economic and technological development, cooperation, and well-being.
Peres passed away on September 28, 2016, near Tel Aviv, following a stroke.
