President Obama is honoring the late Shimon Peres, the former president of Israel who died Tuesday at age 93, calling him a "Founding Father of the state of Israel and a statesman whose commitment to Israel's security and pursuit of peace was rooted in his own unshakeable moral foundation and unflagging optimism."
"There are few people who we share this world with who change the course of human history, not just through their role in human events, but because they expand our moral imagination and force us to expect more of ourselves," Obama said in a statement. "My friend Shimon was one of those people." Obama recounted that he first met Peres in Jerusalem when he was a U.S. senator, and that he'd asked him for advice. "He told me that while people often say that the future belongs to the young, it's the present that really belongs to the young," Obama said. "'Leave the future to me,' he said. 'I have time.' And he was right." He described Peres as a "soldier for Israel, for the Jewish people, for justice, for peace, and for the belief that we can be true to our best selves."
In 2012, Obama presented Peres with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, and said Americans are "in his debt because, having worked with every U.S. president since John F. Kennedy, no one did more over so many years as Shimon Peres to build the alliance between our two countries — an unbreakable alliance that today is closer and stronger than it has ever been." Peres never gave up on the "possibility of peace between Israelis, Palestinians, and Israel's neighbors," Obama said, adding he believes there is "no greater tribute to his life than to renew our commitment to the peace that we know is possible." While a "light has gone out," Obama said, "the hope he gave us will burn forever."
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