(AhlulBayt News Agency) - The Foreign Minister of Bahrain has issued a tribute to Israel's ninth President Shimon Peres reported the Associated Press.
The news agency further said that Khalid al-Khalifa tweeted Thursday, "Rest in peace President Shimon Peres, a man of war and a man of the still elusive peace in the Middle East."
For its part, the Israeli Haaretz newspaper noted that "Israel and Bahrain have no official diplomatic ties," adding that this is the first reaction to Shimon Peres' death by a leader in the Arab world other than Abbas.
As for The Jerusalem Post, in an article said that even though Bahrain has no official diplomatic relationship, Khalifa has met with Jewish and Israeli leaders including former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in 2007.
AP further stated that "although Peres is hailed as a man of peace, Arab leaders have greeted his death mostly with silence. The hostility is colored by Peres' role in building his country's defense arsenal, supporting Israeli settlements in the West Bank and waging war in Lebanon."
"Still, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has lauded Peres for reaching a "peace of the brave" with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin," it added.
JP noted that the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sent a condolence letter to the Peres family on Wednesday, expressing his "sadness and sorrow" of the former Israeli statesman's death.
Abbas said Peres made "unremitting efforts to reach a permanent peace since the Oslo Accords until his last moments."
However, many across the world would remember Peres as a "war criminal" especially in light of the 1996 Qana massacre. In that Israeli attack on a southern Lebanese village, at least 106 people were killed. Peres was then prime minister.
Born in Poland in 1923, Peres emigrated to what was then British-mandated Palestine when he was 11. He joined the Zionist movement and met David Ben-Gurion, who would become his mentor and Israel's first prime minister.
Peres became director general of the nascent ministry of military affairs at just 29. He was also seen as a driving force in the development of the Israel's undeclared nuclear program.
Palestinians say Peres has their blood on his hands. Like other Zionist leaders, Peres also allowed Israeli settlement construction to take place in Palestinian land during his years in leadership positions.
The impoverished Gaza Strip witnessed two full-scale wars under Peres’s tenure as president, which claimed the lives of more than 3,700 Palestinians in total.
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has called on Palestinians to hold a “Day of Rage” on Friday which will coincide with the funeral of Peres.
The call is meant to mark the one-year anniversary of the beginning of what is described as the third Intifada throughout the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem al-Quds.
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