No Room for Small Dreams

by Shimon Peres

  “In order to attract a greater number of qualified scientists, we will need qualified teams, outstanding students, better infrastructure and laboratories, better coordination of initiatives . . . new sources of funding, and better cooperation between industry and academia.” And just as important, I added, we would need to “promote the opportunities presented by this initiative in the public consciousness.” This was Israel’s moon shot—not into outer space, but into inner space, the space between and among atoms. I pledged all of my energies to accomplish the mission.

  Later that year, we created the Israel National Nanotechnology Initiative, known as INNI, and charged it with creating an engine for global leadership in the field. The INNI was instructed to engage with nanotechnology stakeholders around the world, from scientists to business leaders to venture capitalists; to establish funding priorities in Israel, with an eye toward bringing the science to a commercial phase faster; to help develop and procure the state-of-the-art infrastructure—manufacturing facilities, research centers, and equipment—that we would need to succeed; to encourage universities to collaborate with business, through the sharing of research and ideas; and finally, to fund-raise. Our estimates suggested that Israel would need a $300 million investment over five years to achieve our mission, and we expected the INNI to contribute a significant portion of that sum.

  Over the years, I became something of a nanotechnology evangelist—the octogenarian enchanted by tech. I urged our researchers to embark on new efforts, speaking with passion to investors and donors and entrepreneurs about the possibilities I could see. During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, after seeing terrorists firing at civilian targets in Israel from civilian institutions in Lebanon (including mosques and hospitals), I was inspired to start a project that became known as Pearls of Wisdom. Its mission: to apply the breakthroughs of nano to our national defense in a new age of warfare. When I became president in 2007, I continued to raise awareness about the importance of the industry, urging greater collaboration and partnership between business and academia, working to get more ideas out of the lab and into the field. It didn’t take long before I found inspiration again, in conversations with Israeli researchers about the potential of brain science. As with nanotechnology, I was moved by the idea that a single field of study could revolutionize so many different domains: that we could fundamentally change medicine, education, and computing by deciphering the mysteries of the brain. And so, in 2012, I helped to launch a new initiative—Israel Brain Technologies—which offered a million-dollar prize to an individual (or team) that could demonstrate an extraordinary breakthrough in the field.

  When I left public office, I continued my work in technology, announcing the creation of the Israeli Innovation Center alongside my successor, President Reuven Rivlin, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Its ambition is to spark the imagination of every child; to empower the next generation to build a better world; and to demonstrate how far a people can come, in so short a period of time.

  Indeed, among the six thousand start-ups based in Israel, there were ninety companies trading on the Nasdaq in 2016, valued at more than $40 billion. In 2014, Israel was second only to China among foreign firms listed on the exchange, and Tel Aviv ranked as having the second-best start-up ecosystem in the world, beaten out only by Silicon Valley. That same year, Israel jumped from thirtieth to fifth on the Bloomberg Innovation Index, beating out, among others, the United States and United Kingdom. Israeli high-tech companies continue to raise billions of dollars every year in investment.

  Of course, the tech sector has driven more than just high growth; it has propelled a scientific revolution, with breakthroughs that have reverberated around the world. Who would have imagined that the world would run on USB drives invented in Israel, or that doctors could see inside patients with an Israeli-developed camera no larger than a pill? Who would have thought that the world would depend on Israeli technology for GPS navigation or that Israeli hardware and software could save drivers from deadly collisions? Who would have believed that medicines to treat Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis would have been developed right here, or that paralyzed people might be granted the ability to walk again through robotic legs invented in Israel? Ben-Gurion once said that in Israel, “in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.” After such extraordinary achievement in science and technology and human creativity, how could we be anything but believers in miracles, faithful to the imaginations that are capable of conceiving them, and committed to the efforts to bring them to life? Ben-Gurion was right: realism in Israel is nothing less than the impossible made real.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE PURSUIT OF PEACE

  In the early twentieth century, as World War I was raging, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson put forth a peace settlement proposal for the world, which became known as Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Upon hearing of the list, the disbelieving French prime minister, Georges Clemenceau, reportedly responded, “Even God Almighty only has ten.” I have spent most of the better part of my life in pursuit of peace, and in doing so have learned what Clemenceau didn’t fully appreciate in that moment. Making peace is not a simple endeavor. It is a constant struggle. But its complexity should not overshadow its purpose.

  Israel is a tiny island that, for most of its short existence, was surrounded by a sea of enemies. The wars we fought were forced upon us. In light of what our enemies hoped (and still hope) for, on the whole we have been triumphant, but we have yet to win the victory to which we have aspired: release from the need to win victories. Indeed, while we have proved that aggressors do not necessarily emerge as victors, we have also learned that victors do not necessarily win peace—that our work is not yet complete.

  As a child I asked my grandfather which verse one should carry in one’s heart. He recited to me the thirty-fourth chapter of the book of Psalms: “Whoever of you love life and desire to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. Seek peace and pursue it.” And so I have, and so we must. I dedicated my life, first and foremost, to making sure Israel was secure: to protect her from the threat of destruction by working to build the greatest defense force in the world, and to deter our foes from believing she could ever be destroyed. When Israel was weak, I worked to make her fierce. But once she was strong, I gave my life’s efforts to peace. Peace is, after all, our heart’s truest desire, yet its pursuit must be based not just on political and economic concerns, but on moral and historical imperatives. As Ben-Gurion so often said, the moral high ground is also the basis of power.

  The Jewish people have lived by the guiding principle of tikkun olam, the ambition to improve the whole world, not just ourselves. We lived in exile for two thousand years, without land, without independence, held together not by borders, but by this simple set of values that have echoed through history—in Hebrew, in Yiddish, in Ladino—in every language of every country into which the Jewish people dispersed. It is the basis of our identity. And it is from this moral code that we know, fundamentally, that Israel was not born to rule over other people, that to do so is in profound opposition to our heritage. And so I have pursued peace with all of my heart and soul, both realistically and optimistically, knowing its achievement remains our most essential task. Israel is small in territory, but it must be great in justice.

  When I became prime minister in 1984, peace was my highest priority. Within my first four months in office, I executed a plan to withdraw our troops from Lebanon, where Israel had been fighting a misguided and fruitless war. But the economic emergency Israel faced took up the lion’s share of my effort. By the time we had rescued our state from financial and fiscal calamity, our unity government had met its rotation deadline. Though many in my party insisted I not uphold my end of the bargain with Yitzhak Shamir, I have always been a man of my word. And so when the time came, I did what I had promised to do, stepping down into the role of foreign minister and ceding the prime minister’s office to Shamir. I w
as no less committed to peace in my new role, nor any less willing to pursue it. But, as I would come to learn, doing so without the support of the prime minister would be the undoing of my first major attempt.

  •••

  The year was 1987. It had been nine years since Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords, an achievement that few had believed possible. After three wars with the Egyptians, after nearly four decades in a constant state of conflict, after so much blood had been spilled and so much animosity calcified, the quest for peace was considered unimaginably naïve. And yet it was only four years after the end of the Yom Kippur War that Sadat made his visit to Israel, the breakthrough that would end in peace and partnership, a treaty signed and upheld to this day.

  It was from that great victory for peace that I drew inspiration—to seek peace with the Jordanians and the Palestinians, thus ending another deadly conflict with our neighbors. I had envisioned something other than a two-state solution back then; it was what I called a tripartite solution, as it would include three autonomous areas: the State of Israel, the Kingdom of Jordan, and a joint entity in the West Bank for the Palestinian people, which would have its own parliament to run local affairs. In national affairs the Palestinians would have the right to vote, either in Israeli or Jordanian elections, depending on their citizenship.

  My first overtures would be complicated. We had no diplomatic relations with Jordan. It was against the law to cross the border, to engage with the Jordanians personally or diplomatically in any way. Nearly our entire eastern border touched theirs, which made Israel vulnerable. Jordanian belligerence was a constant concern, a threat that argued for the necessity of peace. I believed it was time to begin the effort, however treacherous it might be.

  And so I jumped in as best I could, trying to build a strategy that would start the conversation. The first move, I decided, was to place a phone call to a prominent London attorney named Victor Mishcon. Mishcon was a friend of mine and of Israel. He was also a friend of Jordan’s King Hussein.

  “Will you try to set up a meeting between King Hussein and me in London?” I asked unabashedly. There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I will be happy to try, Shimon,” he said, “but I don’t want to get your hopes up. It would surprise me if he agreed to.”

  “Peace is always a long shot,” I replied. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take the shot.”

  Several days later, I received a phone call from Mishcon, so eager he could barely contain himself. “Shimon, King Hussein has agreed!” he exclaimed. “I suggested the two of you have lunch at my house in London. He’s eager to have the conversation!”

  “I’m delighted to hear it, and for your discretion in hosting,” I replied. “We are about to walk into a rare reality, and, perhaps, an even rarer opportunity.”

  By 1987, I had abdicated the position of prime minister to Yitzhak Shamir, as part of the unity government agreement we had struck. Though I was foreign minister and had broad authority, on something as sensitive as a secret meeting with Jordan, protocol demanded that I get Shamir’s approval first. When I raised the plan with him, he didn’t object—though not because he was interested in pursuing peace. Rather, he believed that any such attempt was hopeless, and that there was no harm in proving this to be true.

  Accompanied by Yossi Beilin, the director of the ministry of foreign affairs, and a senior representative from Shamir’s office, I landed in London in April 1987. We arrived at Mishcon’s beautiful home, where we were greeted by King Hussein and Zaid Rifai, Jordan’s prime minister. It was a surreal moment, shaking hands with sworn enemies in such an unassuming environment. But there was a power in it, too—the power to remind us that something extraordinary might be possible. For the sake of secrecy, Victor’s wife had dismissed the staff and took on the task of hosting us, cooking a marvelous meal from scratch and serving it herself.

  From the very beginning, Rifai seemed reluctant to be participating in any discussions of peace—even reluctant to break bread with the Jews across the table. It was clear he was not there on his own accord, but out of obligation to the king he served. Hussein, on the other hand, was warm and open from the moment we arrived. There was an excitement in his voice and his body language; I excitedly recognized a man who was gazing to the future with optimism and hope.

  We sat around the table, in front of the beautiful lunch Mrs. Mishcon had prepared, and the king and I spoke to each other in English, not as enemies, but as newfound friends. We saw in each other a similar desire for a different relationship, and agreed that the moment was ripe to bring the conflict that had haunted our countries to an end. I had not arrived in London expecting such a reception—this was intended to be an initial overture, a chance to see if peace might eventually be possible. But as the conversation continued, it became increasingly clear that we had a chance, that very same day, to take a much more concrete step than I had imagined. As dusk settled onto misty London, Hussein and I had moved from broad strokes to concrete details, all with Rifai sitting in quiet frustration. When the meal was over, Mrs. Mishcon came in to clear the dishes.

  “Let Mr. Peres and I do the dishes,” Hussein said. “You’ve already done more than enough.”

  “Yes, that’s a wonderful idea,” I added. “Whenever Sonia cooks, I’m in charge of the dishes.”

  In the moment before Mrs. Mishcon could respond, I could already picture the scene, two former enemies, standing side by side as friends, the foreign minister of Israel in charge of scrubbing, the king of Jordan in charge of drying. It was an invitation to do something so simple, yet so intimate and meaningful and humble. But before we had the chance, Mrs. Mishcon interrupted.

  “Absolutely not, gentlemen,” she said firmly. “I would be mortified, and you have work to do.”

  We relented out of respect, and instead returned to our conversation. I suggested we put together a nonbinding conference for negotiations, one delegation from Israel, one representing both the Jordanians and the Palestinians. Hussein agreed.

  “This is a holy challenge for me, a religious duty,” he said. In that moment, I suddenly saw a direct line from the informal conversation we had undertaken to the signing of a peace treaty—and I believed I knew exactly how to get there. It was time to escalate our talks.

  “In that case,” I replied, “why don’t we try to write down an agreement together, based on these discussions, right now?”

  “I have another engagement I must go to,” he replied, “but I can be back in an hour.” In the meantime, he suggested that we should draft two documents: one describing the logistics of the peace conference, the other setting out the principles of agreement between our two countries. As soon as the king and prime minister left, we got to work. I dictated both documents as my aide typed feverishly. By the time Hussein and Rifai had returned, the first drafts of both documents were ready to be discussed.

  When the Jordanians were finished reading the document, Rifai started listing the changes he wanted to make, but Hussein stopped him almost immediately. “These drafts reflect the agreement we discussed,” he said. “I’m content to move forward.” I was, admittedly, taken totally by surprise: the agreement we had put forward was quite fair to Israel. Not only did it create a path to peace with the Jordanians, it resolved the Palestinian question without requiring Israel to relinquish any of its territory or to change the status of Jerusalem.

  The agreement stood in stark contrast to the order of the day, in which Jordan was a dangerous enemy interested in war, not peace. That we had made such progress at all was enchanting. That it had happened so quickly was inconceivable. In the course of a single day, it felt as if we had taken steps forward, that could be measured in years, to end a conflict that had lasted for decades.

  Much like the Camp David Accords, we agreed it would be helpful to have the United States put forward the proposal as a distinctly American one, allowing each side to agree t
o it without revealing the secret negotiations from which it had been born. We would send it to George Shultz, the secretary of state, and ask him to present it back to us.

  I flew home that night brimming with delight. In the thirty years since, we have never come close to achieving peace with so few concessions.

  I phoned Shamir as soon as I landed, and we agreed to meet alone, after the weekly cabinet session. As we sat together, I described the improbable experience of the previous day, giving him a detailed account of the conversation with the king and prime minister, and the documents we had produced. I read each to him, expecting him to light up in similar joy. But he sat quietly, seemingly unmoved. He asked me to read them to him again, and again I did. Still, there was no emotion on his face. He had not expected such a breakthrough, and it was suddenly clear to me that he hadn’t wanted one to begin with. He had approved the conversation believing it was doomed, and that I, the dreamer, the fantasizer, was the perfect fool for the job.

  Engaging in peace talks is like being a pilot. The mother wants him to fly low and slow, out of fear for his safety. But this is precisely how a plane falls out of the sky. In order to make peace, one must fly high and fast; it is the only way to avoid a crash. I know, from decades of experience, the consequences of both. Now I feared that Shamir had always intended my ascent to be a slight one.

  Shamir asked me to leave the documents with him, but I was concerned about doing so. If their contents leaked, it would scuttle the agreement. Besides, I told him, it would be better if the prime minister received the draft documents from the Americans, to reinforce the notion that it was their proposal we were considering, not our own. Neither this, nor any part of our conversation, appeared to sit well with the prime minister, and I left the meeting with a knot in my stomach. Could it really be possible, I wondered, that a moment such as this could be squandered? Was the man who became prime minister only a few months earlier ready to sully the deal?