Peretz is trying to reestablish a real labor leftwing by appealing to working class voters who previously supported Likud or other conservative religious parties: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/647739.html
"Peretz emphasized domestic economic issues Sunday in his first campaign speech, as elections were to be brought up to March.
Peretz, a fiery union leader, charged that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government had deepened poverty and "humiliated" the poor and immigrants.
Arik the hero of Israel, king of Israel, who everybody loved, stood by as Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu] hit your supporters without mercy, caused the elderly and the poor to go to the garbage bins."
"You didn't blink when Bibi humiliated the unemployed and called them deadbeats, you didn't make yourself available at the time Bibi hurt new immigrants and gave them a sense that perhaps, once again, the State of Israel does not know how to connect to immigrants but disrespects them," Peretz said.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2005 10:42 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] Sharon shakes things up
[what, if anything, does this mean?]
Israel's Sharon unleashes political earthquake By Allyn Fisher-Ilan Sun Nov 20, 6:34 PM ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will quit his ruling Likud ahead of snap elections and form a new centrist party, to completely reshape Israeli politics and peacemaking, a source in his office said on Sunday.
Sharon will tear apart the movement he helped found to break from the far-right Likud "rebels" who opposed his withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip and potentially free him to give up more land that Palestinians seek for a state.
But the 77-year-old's gamble is possibly the biggest of a military and political career built on risk-taking and polls indicate it is uncertain he can turn the popularity of the Gaza pullout into electoral victory.
"Ariel Sharon has dropped a bomb," said Israel's Army Radio.
Sharon would go to President Moshe Katsav on Monday and ask him to dissolve parliament and call an early national election, officials said. Sharon had already agreed to bring forward the balllot from November 2006 to February or March.
In theory, Katsav could ask someone else to try to form a government -- an unlikely prospect -- otherwise he would dissolve parliament for an election to be held within 90 days.
Sharon has already begun contacting political allies to join a new party he would head, and Israeli media said 14 of Likud's 40 lawmakers, including five cabinet ministers, have agreed to join him.
He has also been wooing veteran peacemaker and old coalition ally Shimon Peres, whose November 10 defeat as leader of the center-left Labour party by union leader Amir Peretz triggered the political upheaval.
Sharon had been expected to announce his decision by a planned meeting on Monday with members of the parliamentary faction of Likud, which has long since failed to live up to its Hebrew name meaning "cohesion."
PEACEMAKING PLANS
Confidants have said Sharon wants to seize the chance to defeat Labour, then pursue plans to end conflict with the Palestinians without having to battle Likud hardliners.
Earlier, Labour's central committee, encouraged by fiery new leader Peretz, voted overwhelmingly to leave the government it had joined to help Sharon push through the Gaza withdrawal.
"Let the revolution begin," said party official Eitan Cabel as he announced the result of the vote in a show of hands.
Anticipating that Sharon would bolt and cause a leadership challenge, some Likud ministers suggested they would be ready to stand against Sharon's old rival Benjamin Netanyahu, who resigned as finance minister to oppose the Gaza pullout.
Likud hardliners oppose giving up Jewish settlements on any of the land that Israel captured in the 1967 war. For many years Likud -- with Sharon at the forefront -- championed the building of the enclaves.
While ready to go further than many in Likud, Sharon still aims to keep major West Bank settlements and has ruled out talks on statehood unless Palestinians disarm militants waging an uprising.
Palestinians fear Sharon aims to unilaterally set a border along the lines of a barrier being built deep inside the West Bank. Israel says the barrier stops suicide bombers. Palestinians call it a land grab.
BREAKAWAY PARTIES
Labour wants quick peace talks with the Palestinians. Peretz also stands on a platform of rolling back spending cuts and free-market reforms that are credited with helping lift Israel from recession.
Recent polls suggest that a new party, bringing in some Labour members, would leave Sharon neck-and-neck with Peretz with Likud pushed into third place.
The precedent for starting breakaway parties in Israel is not encouraging for Sharon. Founding prime minister David Ben-Gurion failed miserably when he tried, before slipping from the political scene.
"I think in three or four months when elections are held, matters will look much less dramatic," said Yuli Edelstein, one of the Likud lawmakers who opposed the Gaza withdrawal. "There will be the two big parties and Sharon's party, the third in size." ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk