In a series of interviews that Shimon Peres granted for Israel's Independence Day, just before completing his seven-year term, the president of the State of Israel made sure to supply one significant diplomatic headline. In an effort to maintain his public relevancy in his next job as head of the Peres Center for Peace, in which he will continue to promote the diplomatic process with the Palestinians, Peres said that he reached a series of understandings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas three years ago. These understandings, he said, should have enabled the signing of an agreement. But according to him, “[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu stopped it.”

In the interviews, Peres said that during Netanyahu’s second term, Abbas agreed to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, to compromise on the issue of refugees and to show flexibility in the matter of borders. Instead of insisting on a return to the 1967 lines, he was prepared to negotiate on the territory of the Palestinian state. Peres revealed that he was acting with Netanyahu’s knowledge. However, when he went back to the prime minister with the agreement, Netanyahu led him to understand that the Middle East Quartet’s envoy to the Middle East, Tony Blair, had a better proposal. With that, said Peres, Netanyahu dissolved a historic agreement.

The sense that the president attempted to convey before moving to his new office at the Peres Center in Jaffa is that peace with the Palestinians was within reach, and that between Netanyahu and Abbas, it is the Israeli prime minister who is rejecting peace. This fascinating and important story could have easily been the opening shot in a negative political campaign targeting Netanyahu, with Peres uniting a coalition of all the centrist and leftist parties against him. But the president, who will celebrate his 91st birthday in August, has already announced that he has no more political ambitions. The option of returning to politics always seems to hover around Peres, but it looks like this time, he is serious about staying away.

But even without a political platform, Peres plans to continue influencing politics. He has said in interviews that he doesn’t intend to take a single day of vacation. Relaxing at the beach bores him. And so, with a single headline, Peres is beginning to remove the mantle of national and official consensus under which he has worked as president and dive back into the sullied waters of local politics, thus inviting doubt about his credibility.