Former Israeli prime minister Mr Shimon Peres has lived up to his reputation as a peacemaker by brokering the new agreement to end the wave of Israeli- Palestinian violence. The man who has had a key role in shaping Israel for the better part of five decades finds himself back in the spotlight for the first time since he lost power to the right-wing Mr Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996.
Mr Peres (77) enjoys a reputation in foreign capitals as a visionary battler for peace, though those same attributes have not endeared him at home to Israelis sceptical of his dream of a Middle East where Jew and Arab might live in harmony. The 1993 Oslo interim peace deal he negotiated in secret with the PLO was sprung on a nation unprepared for such sudden recognition of a guerrilla movement committed until then to Israel's destruction.
Mr Peres has had an often uneasy relationship with Mr Barak, his successor as leader of the Lab our Party and in whose cabinet he now serves. Mr Peres became prime minister after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995. He had been prime minister in a power-sharing deal in the 1980s but never won a general election outright in five attempts between 1977 and 1996. Four years ago, he was punished at the polls, after a string of Islamic suicide bombings, for thinking he could make peace with the Palestinians.
Born in Poland in 1923, he was 11 when he arrived in British Mandate Palestine. Israel's founding father, David Ben-Gurion, groomed him for leadership. He was popular in his first term as prime minister from 1984 to 1986 as part of a power-sharing pact with the right-wing Likud. He had hoped to crown a political career older than Israel itself by becoming president. He lost the vote in parliament on July 31st to Mr Moshe Katzav, a right-wing politician unknown outside Israel.