A fool speaks

Shimon Peres is the former Prime Minister of Israel; as Yitzhak Rabin’s Foreign Minister he was an architect of the Oslo Accords that brought Yasser Arafat and the PLO to power on the West Bank and Gaza. In 1994 Peres shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Rabin and Arafat.
Rabin and Peres made the cynical calculation that Arafat’s brutal thuggery would be turned on the Arabs in the territories that had become a burden for Israel to govern under civilized constraints. Their bargain with Arafat must be judged one of the twentieth century’s most stupid acts of statesmanship — stupidity for which Israel and others continue to pay the price.
An ancient adage advises: “Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.” Peres would be well advised to heed the wisdom of the ancient adage, but he loves the sound of his own voice too much. Today the Houston Chronicle provides the forum for his curiously detached retrospective: “With the death of a father, Palestinians must grow up.”
With the death of illusions, the father of the illusions should have the decency to shut up.