Peres, Shimon (1923- )

Israeli Labour politician, prime minister 1984-86 and 1995-96. He was prime minister, then foreign minister, under a power-sharing agreement with the leader of the Likud Party, Yitzhak Shamir. From 1989 to 1990 he was finance minister in a Labour-Likud coalition. As foreign minister in Yitzhak Rabin's Labour government from 1992, he negotiated the 1993 peace agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He shared the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994 with Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yassir Arafat for their agreement of an accord on Palestinian self-rule.

Following the assassination of Rabin in November 1995, Peres succeeded him as prime minister, and pledged to continue the peace process in which they had both been so closely involved, but in May 1996 he was defeated in Israel's first direct elections for prime minister.

Peres emigrated from Poland to Palestine in 1934, but was educated in the USA. In 1959 he was elected to the Knesset (Israeli parliament). He was leader of the Labour Party 1977-92, when he was replaced by Rabin.