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SHIMON PERES, THE LAST OF ISRAEL’S FOUNDING FATHERS, DIES

Shimon Peres, the former president and prime minister of Israel, and in recent years the country’s elder statesman, died this morning at age 93, after suffering a severe stroke two weeks ago.

Peres was born in what was then Poland (now Belarus) and escaped to what would become Israel in the 1930s. His family that remained behind were murdered in the Holocaust.

For seven decades (since 1946 when Ben Gurion put Peres and Moshe Dayan in charge of making arms purchases for the Haganah), he held senior positions in Israeli military and political life.

His most important achievement (in my view) was his key role in helping Israel to gain a nuclear deterrence in order to make much less likely the possibility of a second Holocaust of the Jewish people. It is the nuclear deterrence that has helped allow Israel to take significant risks for peace in recent decades, moves that Peres was at the forefront of and for which he was awarded the Nobel peace prize.

Both U.S. President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton have confirmed they will attend Peres’ funeral in Jerusalem on Friday.