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The case of Amir Peretz
By Gilad Atzmon
11/14/05 "ICH
" -- -- 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.
Mr Peretz was born in Morocco. He immigrated to Israel at the age of
four. He has never denied his origin or tried to assimilate into the
Ashkenazi Israeli world. I would allow myself to argue that if there
is any remote hope for the integration of Jews into the region, it
is a man like Peretz who may deliver the goods. It is a man like
Peretz, himself an Arab, who can treat his neighbours with respect.
Rather than Shimon Peres’s global dream of ‘new Middle East’ in
which Israel delivers wealth to the ‘inferior’ Arabs, Amir Peretz’s
message to the Israeli people is rather simple and far less pompous:
once we address our social problems we will be ready to talk peace
with our neighbours. This message is actually deeper than any other
Israeli political manifesto I can think of. To start with, it is
genuine. For the first time an Israeli politician considers peace as
a meaningful signifier rather than an empty slogan. For the first
time an Israeli politician refuses to drop the word ‘shalom’ just
for the sake of dropping it. But not only is Peretz’s message
authentic, it may as well be a message to the European community: No
more global capitalism. Rather than serving big business politics
you better look into your back garden. This message may help the
confused French left address their current crisis. Unless some
social justice is introduced into our national discourse, Europe
would turn into hell. Don’t you forget, for many it is hell already.
It isn’t a coincidence that Peretz came with such a message. Israel
is ahead of Europe in terms of moral deterioration. Being an
Americanised state, it has been suffering the impact of global
politics for many years. Israel is but a mere microcosm of a
ferocious cultural battle. Being at the forefront of the so-called
‘cultural clash’, Israel is the place where East meets West. Where
the colonial meets the oppressed colonized. Where black meets white.
Israel is the pain Western colonialism dispersed to the Arab world.
The Israelis are the occupiers but at the same time they themselves
are the first to suffer from being the carrier of those doomed
policies.
Israeli society is falling apart under the burden of many
conflicting interests. On the one hand we can trace the liberal
Western footprints of hard capitalism and privatisation. Israeli
economy is run by big companies, that itself has led to a society
obsessed with consumerism. On the other hand, we can see a rapidly
growing economic gap between the rich and the poor, something that
evolved into some serious social unrest. The rise of Peretz is a
direct reaction to global capitalism. The Local grass-roots hero is
apparently the best answer to the faceless Global enemy.
It is hard capitalism and global interests that may make Amir Peretz
into Israel’s next Prime Minister. It becomes clear that the only
way to confront global capitalism is to fight it locally and
socially. This is what the Israeli Labour party has decided to do.
Wisely, they dumped their old globalist Peres in favour of a man of
the people. In the next election the Israeli people will have to
choose between the hard capitalistic vision of the notorious
Netanyahu and the call for social transformation and equality led by
Mr Peretz.
I allow myself to assume that this is where Europe is aiming. The
turbulence within the Labour backbenches that led to Blair’s defeat
in the House of Commons less than a week ago, points out that it is
the local concerns that will eventually topple Blair rather than his
numerous war crimes in Iraq. Unless France endorses a sincere social
attitude, it is aiming towards civil war. If the European
parliamentary left is interested in rescuing itself as well as
Europe from a complete defeat to American values of greed and
radical egotism, it may want to explore Peretz’s moves in the coming
months. The only way for the European left to survive this doomed
era is to detach itself immediately from big business politics. To
address a particular social strategy that addresses the unique local
discourse and circumstances of what is left of the national state.
Copyright Gilad Atzmon <Contact
Gilad> Visit his website http://www.gilad.co.uk
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