Peres lauds new peace in Mideast

In a speech at Irvine Auditorium yesterday, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres delivered a message of hope for peace in Israel, the Middle East and the world. Peres' speech was the 10th Julius Steinberg Memorial Lecture sponsored by the Wharton School. Before Peres' speech, Wharton Dean Thomas Gerrity presented the statesman with the school's Distinguished Medal of Honor, calling Peres "one of the most influential world leaders of our time." In the hour that followed, Peres discussed the social, political, military and economic implications of technology in a changing world. "The sources of modern strength and modern worth are no longer material, but intellectual," Peres said. He cited the collapse of Communism, the end of apartheid, the success of Middle East peace talks and the ceasefire in Ireland as examples of the triumph of widespread information over geographical and military strength. "Can an army conquer wisdom?" he asked. "Can an army occupy science?" Despite the changes in the international political climate, Peres commented on the difficulty of forging a lasting peace in the Middle East. He also allowed for the possibility that Israel will have to make land concessions in order to maintain peace. "We will have to pay a price and they shall have to pay a price, and the sooner the better," he said of negotiations with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. "We have to give up something which is solid and high: a mountain. He has to make a promise that is maybe higher but not as solid and not as static: a promise of peace." The prospect of such a concession was disturbing to some members of the audience. "What he said [about the importance of peace] everyone agreed with?it's just the way that he's attempting to achieve it that I disagree with," said College sophomore David Siegel. "It's unprecedented that a country give away land that they won in a war." Other audience members accepted Peres's mention of land concessions as a challenge to their own beliefs. "I was upset that he was talking about giving up land," College senior Tara Bandman said. "He made me kind of rethink my stand." Although Peres was speaking at a Wharton event, he did not discuss any specific plans for Israel's economic future. College senior Randi Guest saw this avoidance of facts and figures as a strength of Peres' speech. "He made [the speech] approachable for the people not in Wharton," she said. "He was a lot more universal." Others found Peres's talk lacking in substance. "It seemed like he was saying the same thing that was in the pamphlet" of background information given out before the speech, College sophomore Sally Brown said. Rabbi Sharon Stiefel, assistant director of Hillel, also found the content of Peres' speech to be too general. "It focused on the changing role of technology," Stiefel said of the talk. "I would have appreciated a little more focus on Israel in that picture?So little of the talk was specifically about Israel." Immediately following the speech, Peres took questions from pre-selected attending students, and one question via telephone from an alumnus in Japan. The event was simulcast by satellite to alumni centers around the world, and was broadcast live to an audience of 400 at the Annenberg School theater. After the event audience members from both campus sites -- and interested students who could not get tickets to the event -- gathered on College Green for food, music and an open discussion. The party on College Green was co-sponsored by Hillel and the Meshuganeh Club, a new Jewish social club at the University.