9th Israel President, Nobel Peace Prize Recipient. He received worldwide recognition as the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, sharing equally the coveted award with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat. The three men received their award, according to the Nobel committee, "for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East." He served as the ninth President of Israel from 2007 to 2014. Peres served twice as the Prime Minister of Israel and twice as Interim Prime Minister, and he was a member of 12 cabinets in a political career spanning over 66 years. Peres was elected to the Knesset in November of 1959 and, except for a three-month-long hiatus in early 2006, served continuously until 2007, when he became President. He held several diplomatic and military positions during and directly after Israel's War of Independence. His first high-level government position was as Deputy Director-General of Defense in 1952, and Director-General from 1953 until 1959. During his career, he has represented five political parties in the Knesset: Mapai, Rafi, the Alignment, Labor and Kadima, and has led Alignment and Labor. Peres received the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize together with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat for the peace talks that he participated in as Israeli Foreign Minister, producing the Oslo Peace Accords. Peres was nominated in early 2007 by Kadima as a candidate in that year's presidential election, was elected by the Knesset to the presidency on June 13, 2007 and sworn into office on July 15, 2007 for a seven-year term. He is the first former Prime Minister to be elected President of Israel. At the time of his retirement in 2014, he was the world's oldest head of state. After a massive stroke, Peres suffered irreversible brain damage, and later died from the complications.