Shimon Peres, former prime minister of Israel, will deliver the next address in the Kerschner Family Series Global Leaders at Colgate, October 25.
Shimon Peres, former prime minister of Israel, will deliver the next lecture in the Kerschner Family Series Global Leaders at Colgate on Saturday, October 25, 2014. Peres will address parents, students, alumni, and friends in Sanford Field House beginning at 6 p.m. His speech will be followed by an onstage interview with journalist Bob Woodruff ’83, P’13.
Ticket information will be released at colgate.edu/globalleaders as it becomes available — for those unable to attend in person, the event will also be broadcast live here.
Peres is a world statesman and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Congressional Gold Medal, and Presidential Medal of Freedom. He served as prime minister of Israel several times, and in June 2007 he was elected to serve as the nation’s ninth president, a position he held until July 24 of this year.
Peres had assumed a pivotal role in many state-related missions beginning in 1947, when he was recruited by the Haganah (a pre-independence military organization). Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 Peres headed the naval services, and in 1949 he led a procurement delegation of Israel’s Defense Ministry to the United States where he also studied at the New School for Social Research.
At the age of 29, Peres became the director general of the ministry of defense — the youngest in Israeli history. As director general, Peres was a crucial player in the development of Israel’s military and aerial industries, and he led the effort to establish a nuclear reactor in Dimona.
In 1959, Peres was elected to the Israeli parliament. In the decades that followed, he would serve in every high government office, including minister of defense, minister of foreign affairs, minister of finance, prime minister, and president.
While minister of foreign affairs in 1992, Peres initiated the negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), resulting in the 1993 Oslo Accords. Peres, together with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, were awarded Nobel Peace Prizes in 1994. Peres was also involved in Israel’s successful 1994 negotiations with Jordan.
In 1996, Peres established the Peres Center for Peace — a non-government and non-partisan organization that continues to bring Israel and its Arab neighbors closer by means of peace-building projects that focus on common social and economic interests, thereby fulfilling his vision of regional cooperation.
Journalist and author Bob Woodruff ’83, P’13 will interview Peres on stage.
Woodruff, an award-winning journalist and best-selling author, joined ABC News in 1996. He was named co-anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight in December 2005.
On January 29, 2006, while reporting on U.S. and Iraqi security forces, he was seriously injured by a roadside bomb that struck his vehicle near Taji, Iraq. He returned to ABC News in February 2007, just 13 months later.
The Woodruff family has established the Bob Woodruff Foundation to provide resources and support to injured service members, veterans, and their families.
The Global Leaders series, sponsored by Colgate’s Parents’ and Grandparents’ Fund, allows the university to invite thought-provoking leaders like Peres to campus. Other lecture series speakers have included former secretary of state Hillary Clinton; President Bill Clinton; Tony Blair, former prime minister of Great Britain; Felipe Calderón, former president of Mexico; and the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.