The case of Amir Peretz

The recent election of Amir Peretz as the Chairman of the Israeli Labour Party is far more significant than many commentators would seem to admit. For the first time, the Israeli Labour party is led by a real fiery working class leader. Peretz is a relatively young man who grew up in a council estate in Sderot, a southern Israeli shantytown that was built especially for Arab Jews back in the 1950’s. At the time, the Jewish Ashkenazi elite couldn’t tolerate the idea of Arab Jews flooding into their newly erected European metropolises. The vast majority of Arab Jews were not part of the Israeli demographic landscape until after the foundation of the Jewish state. They were brought to Israel en mass in a massive exodus operation, which often times was forced. The idea behind the operation was the necessity to beef up the majority of the Jewish population by outnumbering the Palestinian population that refused to flee in 1948. Once in Israel, the Arab Jews were treated rather badly. Immediately upon their arrival they felt the heavy hand of Ashkenazi supremacist discrimination. The majority of the new immigrants were dumped in council estates in the Negev desert and other unpopular regions. They were there to serve the Zionist cause either as a cheap labour force or just as a human shield between the emerging European Jewish cities and the hostile Arabs on the other side.

Peretz grew up in Sderot and in the 1980s he became the town’s mayor. In 1995 he was elected as the head of the Histadrut, the major Israeli trade union. A few days ago, Mr. Peretz made it to the very centre of the Israeli political stage. He had managed to oust Shimon Peres, the never dying and yet the most defeated politician in modern history.

Amir Peretz’s appearance is such a big revolution that Sharon and the Likud party are in a real state of panic. But the Likud isn’t alone, Shas, the Orthodox Sepharadic party is mighty concerned as well. For the first time, a secular Sepharadic man is leading one of the two biggest parties. Moreover, the man is an ordinary human being, he isn’t an heroic veteran IDF general. He isn’t an ex Mossad assassin, he doesn’t have Arab blood on his hands. He didn’t adopt the Ashkenazi’s pretentious jargon. He wasn’t appointed by an Ashkenazi politician as political bait to pull in Arab Jews. He is a simple Israeli man who managed to take over the second biggest Israeli party, he did it on his own right and he is an Arab Jew.