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| By: Israel Insider staff and partners |
| Published: November 21, 2005 |
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Israel's dovish Labor Party voted Sunday to pull out of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government.
The Labor decision to leave Sharon's government came at a party convention by a show of hands, following Peretz's wishes. With Labor out and Sharon's coalition crumbling, attention turned to setting an election date.
This month's surprise election of Peretz, a fiery union leader, as head of Labor accelerated the spiral toward early elections.
Labor joined Sharon's coalition government in January to buttress support for the Gaza pullout, but in one of his first moves, Peretz extracted letters of resignation from the eight Labor Cabinet ministers last week.
Blaming Sharon and his ex-finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu for increasing poverty and "humiliating" the poor, Peretz appealed to Israel's lower classes, traditionally Likud voters. "Come join the new social pact," he said, "you are not abandoning Likud. Likud has abandoned you," emphasizing social issues over Israel's traditional election deciders - security and the Palestinian issue.
In a brief reference to Mideast peacemaking, Peretz said he favors a united Jerusalem as Israel's capital and opposes permitting Palestinian refugees to return to Israel - an attempt to counter efforts to paint him as an extreme dove who would make far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians.
He also said that creation of a Palestinian state is in Israel's interest as well as the Palestinians'.
The AP contributed to this report. |
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