On September 25, President Shimon Peres of Israel delivered an address, "The Globalization of Peace," at the NYU School of Law. He was introduced by Lester Pollack, the chairman of the Law School Board of Trustees.
Sponsored by NYU’s Taub Center for Israel Studies, Peres's speech included an analysis of the conflict in the Middle East and a forecast of the region's political future. Peres enumerated what he saw as the three primary roots of dispute in the Middle East: religious zealots attempting to halt the forces of modernity in favor of their own traditional beliefs; Iran's plays for hegemony in the region; and clashes between Israel and its Arab neighbors. In its 60 years, Peres said, Israel had endured seven wars, "outgunned, outnumbered," and "demonstrated that democracy, even if it doesn't have the right numbers or the right weapons, can win a war." 
But Peres, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his participation as Israeli foreign minister in the peace talks with Palestinians leading to the Oslo Accords, also pointed to Israel's peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan: "I don't say that peace is perfect, but we prefer an imperfect peace to a perfect victory or a perfect war."
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