Peres, Shimon

(b. 1923)

   Israeli politician. Peres was born in Poland and educated at New York and Harvard Universities. He settled in Palestine in 1934. Before independence he was a member of the Haganah movement and he became Head of the Israel Naval Service in the Ministry of Defence in 1948. He was deputy director general of the Ministry of Defence from 1952–3 and director general from 1953–9. He was elected to the Knesset in 1959 as a member of the Mapai party and he was a protégé of David BEN-GURION. From 1959–65 he served as deputy minister of defence. He formed the Rafi Party in 1965 which merged with the Labour Party in 1968. From 1969–70 he was minister for economic development in the Administered areas. He was minister for transport and communications from 1970–4. For four months in 1974 he became minister of information and he served as minister of defence from 1974–7 and as acting prime minister in April and May of 1977. In 1977 he had been elected chairman of the Labour Party and was thus the leader of the opposition from 1977–84 during the invasion of Lebanon. He became prime minister again from 1984–6; between 1986–90 he was deputy premier in uneasy coalition with Yitzhak SHAMIR and he also served simultaneously as minister for foreign affairs and secondly as finance minister. He is the author of The Next Step (1965), David’s Sling (1970), Tomorrow is Now (1978) and From These Men (1979).