The television debate before the 1996 elections was the first time that Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu went head-to-head with each other. Netanyahu was victorious in that round, and two days later also won the elections and took the prime minister’s job away from Peres, on his way to his first term of office. Since then the relationship between the two has been complex. Over the last four years the relationship has been characterized by many hopes, mainly on the part of Peres, only for those hopes to be dashed. Nevertheless, it seems that last week, the relationship hit a new low.

After almost four years of stagnation in diplomatic negotiations, accompanied by severe deterioration in Israel’s foreign relations with the United States and Europe — Peres allowed himself to publicly express his frustration and disappointment at Netanyahu.

Peres did this in the course of a lecture he delivered last Sunday [Dec. 30] at the yearly ambassadors' convention of the Foreign Ministry. “Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is a peace partner,” he said. “I know him for 30 years. No one will change my mind.” Then he added, “Even if they tell me that I cannot make my opinion known, because I am president.”

The presidential words of criticism, uttered in the midst of an election campaign, led to the following aggressive response from Likud-Beiteinu headquarters: “It is very unfortunate that the country’s president chooses to express a personal political opinion that is disconnected from the Israeli public's stance regarding Abu Mazen, the peace refusenik. [It is] a position that encourages condemnations of Israel in the international community." Netanyahu did not renounce this statement issued by Likud-Beiteinu, he only softened its style somewhat.