Some three weeks ago, on the occasion of his 89th birthday, Israeli President Shimon Peres gave loud and clear public expression to his opposition to a possible Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations. This followed two years during which Peres is said to have counseled Israel’s leaders in closed quarters against the ramifications of such an attack. Giving a number of separate interviews on Aug. 16, Peres did not oppose such a strike under all circumstances. Rather, he warned against an attack that would not receive a green light from Washington. 

Coming after almost every former chief of Israel’s defense and intelligence agencies — and a few of the serving chiefs as well — have already expressed publicly or semi-publicly their opposition to such a strike, Peres’ intervention raises a good question: Why does he matter? Why does someone, who in the Israeli constitutional set-up fills no more than a ceremonial role, count? Without decision-making authority, why should Peres’ voice be considered a significant addition to the already formidable chorus warning of the implications of such an attack?

The significance of Peres’ intervention in this debate has little to do with the office of the presidency which he now holds. Nor is it only tied to the fact that in the past few years — after a political career that now spans at least six decades — Peres has become a consensus figure in a country where almost no one enjoys such respect. Instead, it results from Peres’ unique standing as the father of Israel’s own nuclear efforts.

The nuclear reactor in Dimona — the centerpiece of Israel’s nuclear option — was an offspring of the Israeli alliance with France, forged in the mid-1950s. The architect of the alliance was then-Deputy Defense Minister Shimon Peres. It resulted not only in massive French arms sales to Israel but also in the joint attack on Egypt known as the 1956 Sinai-Suez War. The French needed Israel to help topple Egypt’s President Gamal Abdul Nasser who supported their opponents in Algeria. The side payment their Socialist leaders were willing to provide Israel was a 26-megawatt nuclear research reactor. Now, some six decades later, Peres continues to be credited by the Israeli public for an option that enjoys almost total support among Israeli Jewish voters who view it as the ultimate deterrent for “a rainy day.”