Shimon Peres has climbed many heights in his long life. He served Israel as minister, prime minister, and state president. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his efforts to find a compromise with the Palestinians. Beyond his death – he died in 2016 at the age of 93 – he is revered at home and around the world as a visionary and a political and moral authority. But now the accusation of sexual assault is casting a shadow over the fame – and a difficult debate unfolds in Israel, initially rather tentatively.
Colette Avital is the name of the woman who made the country sit up and take notice and caused ambivalent reactions with a long interview she gave to the daily newspaper Haaretz gave. “He pushed me against the door and tried to kiss me,” is how she describes an incident from 1984 when she went to the then Prime Minister Peres for an interview in his office. She “pushed him away and left the room with trembling legs”.
According to Avital, this was not the first attack. A good two years earlier, when she was on a post in Paris for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Peres had invited her to a working breakfast at the hotel on one of his visits to France. For security reasons, she was told on arrival, the meeting should take place in his room. Peres received her there in pajamas and pushed her towards the bed. It only took a few seconds and she fled the room immediately.
“We’re talking about a time when men thought they should.”
Avital, who is now 81 years old and is still active as chairwoman of an umbrella organization for Holocaust organizations, is known in Israel as a diplomat and politician. From 1999 to 2009 she sat for the Labor Party, which Peres also belonged to, in parliament. In 2007 she even ran against Peres in the presidential election. Even after the events described by Avital, the two maintained close relationships – and Avital used the interview in Haaretz at the same time to defend herself against old rumors that she had been Peres’ lover and that she owed her career to him.
She gives two reasons for her public silence, which lasted around 40 years: “At that time people would have laughed at me,” she says. “We’re talking about a time when men thought they should.” In the course of her career, something similar happened to her several times and she learned to defend herself against it.
At the same time, she speaks of having “adored” Peres as a politician. In the later years of cooperation, no more attacks occurred. It is not about personal attention or a headline, she assures. But she was asked about it directly and didn’t want to deny it. “It was the right time now,” she says. “Young women should know that they are not victims and have to carry something like that around with them for many years.”
Over the weekend, the Israeli television broadcaster Channel 12 reported another woman who made similar allegations against Peres. She was not introduced by name but only as a “high-ranking employee” who reported on “terrible memories” of Peres that haunted her to this day. “It’s daunting, but there seem to be some cases like this,” commented Avital.
Reports of sexual assault by powerful men are certainly nothing new in Israel’s political landscape. Moshe Katzav, Peres’ direct predecessor in the presidency, even had to resign for rape and serve a five-year prison sentence. The most prominent cases so far have mostly concerned politicians from the right-wing spectrum. However, the fact that a pillar saint of the left and liberal camp is now being accused in Peres causes some irritating statements in the discussion.
Anat Maor, a former MP of the left-wing Meretz party, spoke up with a sharp attack on Avital: “I and many others are very disappointed with your revelations,” she said. On the one hand, the allegations are “a disrespect for victims of serious attacks”. Above all, however, she warned of “great damage” because the allegations against Peres would now be used to “damage the peace process and the Oslo Accords”.
Colette Avital also ruled on it. “As Israelis, we owe our security to Shimon Peres,” she said. “I really believed in his vision and really appreciated him. But I knew how to separate these things.”