The leftist Bush should appreciate

[bemildred]

More about Mr. Peretz.

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Peretz rose to power as the leader of Israel's Histadrut trade union federation. His platform calls for raising the minimum wage and waging war on poverty. One-quarter of Israelis older than 65 and one-third of Israel's children live below the poverty line.

Peretz, an unabashed Social Democrat, calls himself a "social issues general." Unlike past and current Israeli leaders, he would need a translator to talk with Bush in the Oval Office because his English is minimal. But he wouldn't need one to talk with the Arab world, a first for an Israeli leader.

A victorious Peretz in next spring's parliamentary elections would be the Bush administration's best hope for moving Israel toward a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. A Sephardic Jew, he and his family arrived in Israel from Morocco when he was 4. The transit camp they settled in grew into the Israeli town of Sderot, a few miles from the Gaza border. The town has been in the news because it is a frequent target of Palestinian extremists firing Kassam rockets from Gaza. Sderot is typical of towns in which populations live on the edge and far from the chattering classes of North Tel Aviv.

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Sharon, mindful of the Peretz threat, has hinted that his new party will be "centrist" in foreign and domestic policies. To pull that off, he will have to further distance himself from his dismal economic record. A third party has never faired well in Israel, where leaders as iconic as David Ben Gurion bolted their parties to form new ones only to fizzle out on election day.

LA Times

[Tom Joad]

1. Peretz has much in common with Sharon...what is really happening

New Labor Leader Amir Peretz OKs 350 new housing units in West Bank 22 November 2005

http://www.palestinemonitor.org/nueva_web/updates_news/updates/amir_peretz.h
tm

Yesterday the Israeli Housing Ministry announced its plan to build 350 additional illegal housing units in the Ma'ale Adumim settlement east of Jerusalem. Ma'ale Adumim is one of the most controversial of Israel's illegal West Bank settlements because its location, and the Wall being built around it, effectively severs the northern West Bank from the southern West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. It is also the largest Israeli settlement with a population of around 30,000.

The decision was made by Chaim Herzog, the Israeli Labor Minister, a member of Israel's Labor party. It was approved by new Labor party leader Amir Peretz. The approval came after the Labor party had already withdrawn from Sharon's coalition government.

A spokeswoman on behalf of Herzog said that there is general agreement within Israel that Ma'ale Adumim will become a part of Israel in any future agreement with the Palestinians.

Such actions and statements violate the Road Map by attempting to prejudice final status negotiations. According to the Road Map, Israel is obligated to freeze settlement expansion and remove all outposts that have been set up by settlers without official Israeli permission. Under international law, Israel is obligated to dismantle all settlements east of the Green Line.

Instead, Israel continues to build and expand settlements, even under the eye of the new 'leftist' Labor leader, violating the Road Map, international law, and American demands.

[bemildred]

2. Yeah, I posted that story before:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x105387

I don't have an opinion about Mr. Peretz yet, although it seems clear his election to head labor is a straw in the wind.