WASHINGTON, D.C. (SDJW) — Israel’s President Shimon Peres, after receiving a Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony Thursday, June 26, in the Capitol rotunda, thanked both President Obama and the Congress for standing by Israel throughout its history and for making the Jewish nation “strong enough to take risks for peace.”
Peres said that at the same time Israel fights terror, it also must seek to make peace with both the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors. “Israel does not intend to rule over people, it stands against our heritage and our values,” he declared from a lecturn framed by giant statues of Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln.
He described Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as “clearly a partner for peace,” whom he said demonstrated that when “he spoke bravely in Saudi Arabia, in Arabic, against the kidnapping (of three Israel teenagers, against terror and for peace.”
However, warned Peres, “you cannot put fire and water in the same glass. As he is a friend, Hamas is clearly not a partner for peace. Hamas fires rockets at our civilians. They oppose peace, they support terror.”
The Israeli President carried an appeal to the American Congress from the mothers of the three kidnapped Israeli teens–Gilad Shaer, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yiftach — to “make your voice heard all over the world to help bring them, their boys, our boys, home, to sound a call across the world against terror.”
He said the fight against terror must not only be against acts, but also against the “roots of terrorism not just by military means but by drying the financial supply, by delegitimizing their actions, by weaving a modern regional net that can catch terrorists and protect the innocent people.”
With one month left in his term as the ninth President of Israel, Peres said he believes the founder of the modern Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl, was right when he advised those who doubted that Israel could ever be established, “if you will it, it is not a dream.”
“My friends,” said the 90-year-old Peres, “I have lived long enough to see impossible becoming possible. To skeptics I say that peace is the most possible impossibility.” He advised the United States, the world’s most powerful nation, “don’t dream small; you are great. Dream big, and make the world better!”
Interrupted by applause many times, Peres received a standing ovation at the end of his oration. He had been introduced by Vice President Joseph Biden as a “national treasure” both for Israel and for the Untied States of America. Saying he has met many world leaders, Biden told Peres: “I have never met a person with greater eloquence nor possessed of more wisdom than you.”
After hugging Peres, Biden returned to the lectern to formally intone that the Israeli President would be the next speaker, admonishing himself for forgetting that ceremonial duty.
The actual presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal was done by Biden and a covey of Senators and Congressmen including Senate President pro tempore Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner, their counterparts in the opposite parties, Senator Mitch McConnell and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, as well as Representative Eric Cantor, the soon to be replaced House Majority Leader. It was a bittersweet moment for Cantor, the lone Jewish Republican in either House, to stand besides Peres at such a moment.
Prior to the formal ceremony, a U.S. Marine Corps choir sang a resonant version of Israel’s National Anthem, Ha Tikvah.
Senator Michael Bennet, who is Jewish, was one of four lawmakers who led the effort to confer the Congressional Gold Medal on Peres, who also is the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize among other awards.
Bennet (D-Colorado), Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire) introduced in the Senate the bipartisan measure to honor Peres while Congressmembers Joe Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Trent Franks (R-Arizona) did likewise in the House of Representatives.
Said Bennet: “The United States and Israel have a special relationship that is stronger thanks to President Peres’ leadership. His career will continue to serve as an example to the next generation’s leaders. The Congressional Gold Medal is a perfect way to celebrate President Peres’ contributions to the United States and Israel.”
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San Diego Jewish World report