[Israel] New Labor Party leader knows poverty

From The Seattle Post Intelligencer
By AMY TEIBEL
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

JERUSALEM -- Growing up poor in southern Israel, Amir Peretz, the newly elected leader of Israel's Labor Party, knows firsthand about the gap between the country's haves and have-nots.

But as Israel's top union leader, he also knows how 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.

Peretz, a 54-year-old Moroccan native, grew up on the margins of Israeli society. His family immigrated in 1956 and settled in the Israeli town of Sderot near the Gaza Strip, where his father worked on a kibbutz. Peretz's formal education ended in high school.

Many Moroccans and other Sephardi Jews of Middle Eastern descent turned their backs on the country's founding Labor Party decades ago. They felt - and still feel - disenfranchised by Israel's European elite, who sent them to live in remote towns with few services while siphoning off many of the best jobs for themselves.

"And from this public emerges a proletarian prince who takes over the party and becomes its owner," said Israeli political commentator Daniel Ben-Simon.

"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."

Peretz's rise to power was swift. After reaching the rank of captain in the army, he was elected to parliament on the Labor ticket in 1988. In 1995, the father of four became head of the Histadrut Labor Federation.

Since then, Peretz has become a nationally known figure, and an easy target for TV satire because of his trademark walrus mustache and impassioned rhetoric.

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 Israelis who feel betrayed by social spending cuts.

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."

After making a pilgrimage to the grave of Yitzhak Rabin, the former Israeli prime minister who was assassinated 10 years ago this month, Peretz said the Labor Party needs to look inward to regain control of the government it lost in 1977.

"The ability of the Labor Party to become an alternative to the rulers can be fulfilled only if we return to ourselves," he said.