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Amir Peretz: Hands Up! (AP)
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| By Associated Press November 10, 2005 |
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Growing up poor in southern Israel, Amir Peretz, the newly elected leader of Israel's Labor Party, has firsthand knowledge of the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
But as Israel's top union leader, he also knows what it means to wield power, bringing the economy to a standstill with nationwide strikes pushing the demands of large unions that form the base of his support.
On Thursday, with a dramatic upset victory over elder statesman Shimon Peres, he thrust his campaign for greater social and economic equality even more prominently onto the national stage, pledging to bring Labor back to its egalitarian roots.
As chairman of the Histadrut labor federation for the past 10 years, Peretz has been a nationally known figure, and an easy target for TV satire because of his trademark walrus mustache and impassioned rhetoric.
His rant against free market policies Israel has adopted, with Labor's acquiescence, has earned him support among those hurt by the growing gap between rich and poor. It's also earned him the ridicule of others who see him as a throwback to a bygone era.
Politicians and commentators were quick to call Peretz's win "the biggest political upheaval since 1977," the year Labor lost power after governing uninterrupted for Israel's first 29 years.
Lawmaker Tommy Lapid, leader of the middle-class, anti-clerical Shinui Party, didn't mean it as a compliment.
"The borders of Israel's political parties have now been defined," Lapid said. "Now there is a clear leftist party, anti-economy, anti-reform, headed by a social demagogue."
Others saw the revolution differently: Peretz, a Moroccan immigrant who grew up on the margins of Israeli society and whose formal education ended in high school, has turned Israel's political landscape on its head by taking control of the bastion of Israel's elite, with its European, or Ashkenazi, roots.
Moroccans and other Sephardi Jews of Middle Eastern descent turned their backs on the country's founding party decades ago. They felt _ and still feel _ disenfranchised by the Askhenazi elite that sent them to live in remote towns with few services, while siphoning off many of the best jobs for themselves and their cronies.
"And from this public emerges a proleterian prince who takes over the party and becomes its owner," said political commentator Daniel Ben-Simon. "And this is a sign that he will bring (to the party) not only the immigrants, but all those who are on the fringes and felt this party never spoke to them on their level, but always looked down on them."
"It's not an upheaval, it's a revolution," he said of Peretz, whose father used to toil in a Labor-backed kibbutz.
Peretz immigrated with his family to Israel in 1956, and settled in the Israeli town of Sderot, on the edge of the Gaza Strip. He earned his high school diploma, reached the rank of captain in the army and was elected to Israel's parliament on the Labor slate in 1988. In 1995, the father of four became head of the Histadrut Labor Federation.
Hours after his win, Peretz made a pilgrimage to the grave of Yitzhak Rabin, laying a wreath and kissing the gravestone of the Israeli prime minister who was assassinated 10 years ago this month.
Pledging to follow Rabin's path of peace, Peretz declared that only by returning to its founding principles could Labor hope to return to power. "The ability of the Labor Party to become an alternative to the rulers can be fulfilled only if we return to ourselves."
Peretz has crippled the economy on various occasions with nationwide strikes intended to wrest concessions from the government as it privatizes state industries and negotiates collective bargaining agreements. For this, he has won the backing of those who feel betrayed by social spending cuts and privatization. But in comments Thursday, he was savvy enough not to cross rhetorical red lines.
"I don't intend to damage the free market and competition," he said. "But I want Israel's free market to serve people, and for competition to be fair, so we won't be turned into a jungle where people lose their ability to survive."
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange dropped on news of his win, but only moderately, rallying later in the day on unrelated economic news.
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