Spoetnik
10-11-05, 17:49
Analysis / A new era - The Labor Party is back in the politics game
By Daniel Ben-Simon
The election of Amir Peretz has shaken the political system and may mark the beginning of a new era in Israeli politics. The big winner is the Labor Party, if only because Peretz has the ability to attract sectors that have been inaccessible to Labor for many years.
Peretz's personal profile is almost identical to that of millions of Israelis who immigrated to Israel or were born here after its establishment. A son of Moroccan immigrants, who was raised in a southern development town and reached his position with great toil, and made his way to the top. It is ironic that it was the new immigrants of the 1950s and 1960s who voted for Labor and made it stronger against the right, led at the time by Menachem Begin. The Likud's rise to power in 1977 drew the low-income sectors away from the Labor Party, and it has been ambling behind Likud ever since.
Peretz may symbolize for the populations at the fringe of society, that Labor may become their political home in the sense that if he made it from the bottom to the top, so can they. The fact that he climbed the political ladder to head the Labor Party, traditionally considered as an Ashkenazy-conservative stronghold, is good news for the party among those living on the fringe of society. It is possible that many of them will abandon Likud and Shas and join Peretz.
Peretz will gain from his economic approach, which seeks to narrow the gaps between the haves and have-nots. In the last decade, Israel has become the most polarized society in the Western world and has the highest poverty rate of elderly people. Peretz has announced that he intends to raise the minimum wage and insist that the state support the weak. In this sense, he is the harbinger of the welfare policy's return, a policy that suffered from significant cuts under Likud in the last few years.
In addition, Peretz's victory may bring about a change in the state's priorities. The age of ex-generals as Likud and Labor leaders dictated an agenda that subordinated all aspects of life to the military-political interest. This is the how the political system was overtaken by former generals that changed its nature radically. Peretz is a threat to the military hegemony that Labor MK Danny Yatom expressed so crudely in that famous party meeting, where he ridiculed Peretz for his non-military persona.
The Labor Party could not have hoped for a better vote. Peretz may turn out to be the harbinger of a new era for Labor that will pull it out of the isolation and seclusion it had to endure since the 1977 upheaval. The Labor Party is back in the game.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/644045.html
Dit is historisch te noemen, een Sephardim en niet-oud-generaal die kopstuk wordt van een van de twee grote partijen in Israel. Labor zal nu gaan aandringen op vervroegde verkiezingen.
By Daniel Ben-Simon
The election of Amir Peretz has shaken the political system and may mark the beginning of a new era in Israeli politics. The big winner is the Labor Party, if only because Peretz has the ability to attract sectors that have been inaccessible to Labor for many years.
Peretz's personal profile is almost identical to that of millions of Israelis who immigrated to Israel or were born here after its establishment. A son of Moroccan immigrants, who was raised in a southern development town and reached his position with great toil, and made his way to the top. It is ironic that it was the new immigrants of the 1950s and 1960s who voted for Labor and made it stronger against the right, led at the time by Menachem Begin. The Likud's rise to power in 1977 drew the low-income sectors away from the Labor Party, and it has been ambling behind Likud ever since.
Peretz may symbolize for the populations at the fringe of society, that Labor may become their political home in the sense that if he made it from the bottom to the top, so can they. The fact that he climbed the political ladder to head the Labor Party, traditionally considered as an Ashkenazy-conservative stronghold, is good news for the party among those living on the fringe of society. It is possible that many of them will abandon Likud and Shas and join Peretz.
Peretz will gain from his economic approach, which seeks to narrow the gaps between the haves and have-nots. In the last decade, Israel has become the most polarized society in the Western world and has the highest poverty rate of elderly people. Peretz has announced that he intends to raise the minimum wage and insist that the state support the weak. In this sense, he is the harbinger of the welfare policy's return, a policy that suffered from significant cuts under Likud in the last few years.
In addition, Peretz's victory may bring about a change in the state's priorities. The age of ex-generals as Likud and Labor leaders dictated an agenda that subordinated all aspects of life to the military-political interest. This is the how the political system was overtaken by former generals that changed its nature radically. Peretz is a threat to the military hegemony that Labor MK Danny Yatom expressed so crudely in that famous party meeting, where he ridiculed Peretz for his non-military persona.
The Labor Party could not have hoped for a better vote. Peretz may turn out to be the harbinger of a new era for Labor that will pull it out of the isolation and seclusion it had to endure since the 1977 upheaval. The Labor Party is back in the game.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/644045.html
Dit is historisch te noemen, een Sephardim en niet-oud-generaal die kopstuk wordt van een van de twee grote partijen in Israel. Labor zal nu gaan aandringen op vervroegde verkiezingen.