Shimon Peres on Israeli-Palestinian peace in 1975
Shimon Peres, the former president and prime minister of Israel, passed away Tuesday after suffering a stroke two weeks ago.
Peres’s funeral will be held Friday in Jerusalem. World leaders, including President Obama, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, are set to attend.
Peres served as Israel’s prime minister, president and minister of defense and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his work negotiating the Oslo peace accords between the Palestinians and Israel. He spent a large part of his life working to forge a solid peace for Israel and its neighbors - work that is still being done today.
In 1975 Peres appeared on Face the Nation to talk about U.N. negotiations regarding Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Much of what he said about the tensions in the region, and the search for a solution, still rings familiar today.
While Peres said that Israel would not attend the upcoming U.N. meeting so long as the PLO was invited to talks, he did agree that there was a “need for peace” and a “necessity to enable the Palestinians to live their own life.”
Peres admitted that this process wouldn’t be easy but that the people will be the key to bringing about the momentum for peace.
When asked about Israel’s democratic process for hearing that momentum Peres responded by saying that, “like every democracy we elect a government, so we shall have something to oppose, to be against, to criticize. That’s the nature of things.”
To see Peres’s full interview, check out the video above.