Memoirs of a 'miracle-maker'

Book review of 'No Room For Small Dreams'

NO ROOM FOR SMALL DREAMS

Courage, Imagination, and the Making of Modern Israel

Shimon Peres

HarperCollins

366 pages; Rs 599

“In Israel, to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.”

This intimate account, written during the very last years of Shimon Peres’ life, is at once his own story and the story of Israel from its most formative years to the present. It is a compelling account of courage, hope, tenacity, and incredible chutzpah. His story and that of Israel’s intertwine, making a fascinating and accessible read of behind-the-scenes occurrences at crucial moments in Israel’s history. 

Peres served as Israel’s prime minister, president, and foreign minister, and headed several ministries. He speaks with candour and poignancy about vital moments and dilemmas in his long and distinguished career.  Known in the last 40 years of his life as one of Israel’s most vocal doves – a man singularly focused on peace – he spent the first two decades of his career in preparation for war and was considered one of Israel’s more assertive hawks. In this book, he reconciled this apparent contradiction by viewing peace as a “goal worthy of the chase” and war as a function born “of reluctant necessity”.

His story begins in Vishneva, Poland, which he left as a boy of 11 (1934), eager to be a part of the Zionist dream that had captured the imagination of so many Jews. Peres never saw his grandfather, Rabbi Zvi Meltzer, a man he deeply admired, ever again. He was burnt alive, along with his congregants, in his synagogue. His grandfather had a profound impact on young Shimon, and was his moral guide. From him Peres learned that being Jewish meant, first and foremost, having the moral courage to do what was required on behalf of the Jewish people.

This celebratory account of Israel and the role Peres played in its history begins with his minding sheep as a teenager on a kibbutz and winning the approval of his wife-to-be, Sonia, in a cucumber field. The young man caught Ben Gurion’s attention, and the latter singled out Peres to undertake many important roles. Ben Gurion remained his “mentor and hero”, giving him his blessings to chase improbable dreams. Among the first tasks Peres was assigned was to collect weapons to wage a successful war against the British and to protect the fledgling state from the onslaught of Arab armies.

With excitement and trepidation, Ben Gurion and he watched the debate on United Nations Resolution 181 in November, 1947; it put an end to the British Mandate and partitioned Palestine into two states — leading to Israel’s Declaration of Independence. This plunged the fledging country into war for which it lacked the resources and weapons to defend itself.  Israel was forced to simultaneously address the needs of the thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe and the Arab world who streamed into the newborn nation. Peres discusses how, though out-numbered and out-gunned, Israel refused to be outmatched.

At the onset of war in 1948, Israel had fewer than 35,000 troops, but by the end of the fighting in 1949, more than 100,000 Israelis had taken up arms for the Zionist cause. Peres marvels at how Jewish refugees from Arab nations and the Nazi death camps fought for the new state. At 29, Peres was appointed deputy director of the defence ministry where he built “friendships with arms dealers and partnerships with arms smugglers”. He undertakes secret missions using fake passports, works in the shadows to purchase as many weapons as he can, and speaks of the irony of Czechoslovakia being Israel’s first arms supplier — supplying weapons manufactured at facilities set up by the Nazis in occupied Czech territory.

Peres recounts the roles he played, often behind the scenes in envisioning and developing the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), its aviation industry, nuclear capability (Dimona), ties with the French in military matters, the raid on Entebbe (1976), and securing Israel’s pre-eminence in nanotechnology. In developing Israel’s nuclear capacity, he learned the tremendous power of ambiguity. He was convinced that it deterred Egypt and Syria from daring to attack the heart of Israel — even when they had the capability to do so. “I built Dimona in order to get to Oslo.” His account of the Entebbe planning and his motivation to carry out the daring mission – a way for Israel to be seen as brave and strong in the eyes of the world – is fascinating. Through these times, filled with drama, resolve, and tension, Peres demonstrates the power of imagination and creative decision-making as well as the costs of dreaming big.

Peres is amazed at how Israel was transformed from a start-up nation to a nation of start-ups, a prosperous state, and a force to be reckoned with.  He believes that having nothing was at once Israel’s greatest challenge and blessing, because it forced Israel to tie its hopes to its creativity. From the outset, Peres, when presented with two alternatives, always looked for a third, “the one that you didn’t think of, that didn’t yet exist”. His life and times were truly extraordinary and he remained hopeful and optimistic to the end, only regretting that he did not dream more.