Why I don't have a photo with Shimon Peres

I first met the late Shimon Peres more than 12 years ago. Israeli disengagements on Gaza were just a theoretical construct under discussion then. I was there to find a way to privatize the peace process. 

The idea wasn't mine, but that of Peres, so who better to talk to about it? He was then minister of development for Negev, Galilee and provided generous support to a process we came to call the "Ankara Forum," an effort to use business connections to drown out the conflict. Peres' support lasted throughout his presidency. 

I saw him many times in the last decade while working on this trilateral business cooperation project.

I always enjoyed talking to him. He was history personified to me, larger than life. While talking about privatizing the peace process, you might easily find yourself talking about the importance of geography and connectivity for economic development, or border industrial estates as islands of excellence, with strong connections to the outer world. Then things could flow into the importance of path-breaking technological achievements for economic cooperation, and hence the important place of entrepreneurship on the road to peace. I always emerged from meetings with fresh ideas and plenty of notes, and if I had a practical problem on the ground, I know whose office I had to call first. 

That is how the Ankara Forum for economic cooperation between Israel, Turkey and Palestine was formed. It is a coming together of the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB), the Palestinian Chamber Federation and the Manufacturers Association of Israel. These three institutions were to develop and manage a border industrial estate in Palestine. The original project undertaken was the revitalization of the Beit...

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