Johnston, who hosted a state dinner for Peres at Rideau Hall during that visit, said the Israeli leader left an impression for his social conscience and love of Israel.
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Thousands of people are expected to pay their final respects to former Israeli Prime Minister and President Shimon Peres, who died at the age of 93.
As the last surviving founding father of the Jewish state, he was revered in Israel and praised as a statesman.
Peres was a familiar figure to the North Jersey Jewish community.
He called Peres “a partner in making the peace of the brave” along with the late Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat and Rabin.
While Western leaders eulogized Peres, the Palestinians remained conspicuously silent.
The current Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, released a statement expressing “sorrow and sadness” over Peres’ death.
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A flag flown at half-staff for a foreign leader is rare; Obama ordered the honor after the death of Nelson Mandela, who led South Africa out of Apartheid, in 2013. Obama paid tribute to Peres in the first sentence but pivoted to the far more important matter of himself in the second. Veteran Palestinian politician Qais AbdulKareem declined to answer when asked whether Peres had deserved his Nobel prize. Peres turned Israel from a militia to a state.
“If he was he could have included this in the Oslo agreement”. As foreign minister in 1993, he and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin sealed the Oslo accords, a groundbreaking 1993 interim peace deal with the Palestinians. At 92-years-old, he regaled us with his views of the government, the peace process, American politics, French literature and the history of Israel. “He made many widows and orphaned children”.
In one famous encounter at the 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos, Peres clashed with Turkey’s then-prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, about the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Peres had a major stroke two weeks ago that led to bleeding in his brain. Our own Jim Gardner sat down with Peres in 1996 when he was awarded the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia.
Peres held almost every position in the Israeli government. He moved to pre-state Palestine in 1934 with his immediate family.
So please keep in mind that this man, who spoke six languages, who wrote poetry and quoted literature, who kept abreast of technology, was born in Poland in the early 20’s, a despotic country, and yet helped found a democracy.
Beyond his accomplishments in the public eye, he was also seen as a driving force in the development of Israel’s undeclared nuclear programme in the 1950s.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Peres “as a champion of Israel’s defence” who “strengthened its capacities in many ways, some of them still unacknowledged to this day”. He served in a dozen cabinets and was twice prime minister, though he never won a general election, struggling to connect with ordinary voters.
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As president, a largely ceremonial office he won in 2007, he cultivated an image as the country’s elder statesman and became a popular fixture at global conferences like the World Economic Forum in Davos. That was followed by a peace accord with Jordan.
