(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing in foreign language).
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
That's an ancient prayer of penitence set to contemporary music at the funeral this morning of Shimon Peres, who had asked that it be sung.
Given the crowd of world leaders saying goodbye to the Israeli leader, a crowd that included President Obama and former President Bill Clinton, it was a surprisingly intimate and personal event with eulogies by his friends and children.
NPR's Daniel Estrin is on the line from Jerusalem. Daniel, who've you been talking with?
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Well, I've been talking with a number of Israelis in the streets today. It was really silent this morning in Jerusalem, you know, besides the sound of helicopters hovering in the sky, a part of this major police operation to secure the city with so many world leaders here.
I met one Israeli basketball referee, Yinon Gall (ph) is his name. He was watching the funeral procession on his phone, watching a cantor singing a Hebrew prayer, and he wiped away a tear.
YINON GALL: I think that all the Israeli citizens, no matter what they think about his way, if you're right or wrong, but he tried. He wanted to make peace.
ESTRIN: You know, he told me he didn't agree with Peres politically. In the last Israeli elections, he voted for a political party that supports Jewish settlements in the West Bank, a party that many of its members say they do not believe in a Palestinian state. But this man said he still admired Peres's quest for peace.
INSKEEP: I'm just reflecting on a man walking through that ancient city, watching this funeral procession on his smartphone.
And thinking about Israelis and Palestinians, did Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, come to this?
ESTRIN: He did. He submitted a request to Israel's military for permission to come to Jerusalem for the funeral. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved it, according to his office. He came with a delegation of Palestinian officials. It was his first official visit to Israel in about six years, and his first handshake with Netanyahu in almost a year.
That Israeli man we heard from I met in the street said it was funny that Peres always strived during his life for Netanyahu to strike a peace accord with Abbas. He wanted to always see that handshake. And now that handshake came when he died.
President Obama spoke. He acknowledged the Palestinian president, who was given a front row seat at the funeral.
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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: His presence here is a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace.
INSKEEP: Well, let's talk about that unfinished business for just a moment, Daniel Estrin. Because Shimon Peres, particularly toward the end of his life, the last 20 years or so of his life, favored peace with Palestinians. But Israelis in recent years seemed to lose interest, as one commentator has put it in recent days.
ESTRIN: Right. Well, it was very striking. And Netanyahu is a longtime political foe of Peres. He didn't see eye-to-eye with him when it came to, you know, the readiness of the Palestinian leadership to make peace with Israel. Netanyahu acknowledged in his speech that the two had differences of opinion about guaranteeing peace for Israel. But he said he loved Peres.
Former President Bill Clinton and President Obama, though, spoke very pointedly about Peres's hope for peace. Clinton probably knew him best, you know, they worked closely during the days that Peres helped negotiate the Oslo peace accord with the Palestinians in the 1990s. And Clinton delivered a very emotional eulogy.
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BILL CLINTON: He lived 93 years in a state of constant wonder over the unbelievable potential of all the rest of us to rise above our wounds, our resentments, our fears.
ESTRIN: You know, Steve, there was another very interesting speech. Amos Oz, who's a leading Israeli author, he's a left wing activist and a longtime friend of Shimon Peres. He spoke at the funeral. And he said very clearly with the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian president sitting there in the front row. He said, where are the leaders with the courage to make peace? He said, where are the heirs to Shimon Peres?
INSKEEP: NPR's Daniel Estrin is in Jerusalem, where former Israeli president Shimon Peres was laid to rest today.
Daniel, thanks very much.
ESTRIN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
