Peres wants your peace dreams on his YouTube channel

Peres wants your peace d

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
President Shimon Peres wants to hear from you if you think that you have the magic solution for bringing peace to the Middle East. After a political career spanning the better part of six decades, Peres has reached the conclusion that the politicians don't have all the answers, and could do with a little help. At the launch of his new YouTube channel on Tuesday, Peres invited people around the world to join in him in dialogue. Freedom of expression he said, was once reserved for the powerful, the strong and the mighty, but through communications tools created by modern technology, everyone is free to express themselves, and thereby to make life more meaningful. In his introductory remarks on the channel, Peres said that he wants to share his dreams and thoughts and that he wants to hear the dreams and thoughts of people who have clicked on to his video. "Ideas and dreams are not the monopoly of leaders," Peres, 86, declared at the crowded media conference following the launch. Indicating YouTube co-founder and CEO Chad Hurley, 29, who was sitting next to him, Peres said: "So many ideas come from unexpected sources. Look at this young man..." Peres reiterated that he would like to listen to the ideas of young people whom he doesn't know. "I have the advantage that I'm old," he said. "They have the advantage that they're fresh. Uniting newness with experience is a great thing. There are a lot of problems that are known. There are a lot of solutions that are unknown." Some of the most important things he'd done, added Peres, were prompted by conversations with people from the most unlikely backgrounds. During question time, Peres was asked about the possibility of resuming peace negotiations with Syria, and the future status of Jerusalem vis-a-vis the European Union. He was also asked about video spoofs of him that will appear on his YouTube channel. On the spoofs, Peres said: "If you don't have the capacity to laugh at yourself, you don't have the right to laugh about others. I want others to laugh about me. There are good enough reasons to laugh about me." When asked how he felt about YouTube being used as a vehicle for peace, Hurley said that five years ago, when YouTube came into being, he never imagined that it could be considered as a vehicle for peace. The founders created a video platform in which everyone could participate, and thereby established a global dialogue and broke down barriers. "Everyone has the same dreams and the same fears," he said, noting the democracy of YouTube in that it gives everyone around the globe the opportunity to express themselves. "It's given people a lot of laughs," he said, but now he was excited at the prospect that it will also be used to promote peace.