He's not really "one of us"

NECHEMIA MEYERS

A particularly hilarious episode in the Yes, Prime Minister BBC TV series featured a conversation between "Prime Minister" Jim Hacker and a thick-headed, crusty English aristocrat. Hacker tells the aristocrat that the man's well-connected candidate for high office can't be appointed because he is actually a Communist spy. "Impossible," sputters the aristocrat, "he is one of us and so he can't be one of them."

A similar problem faces Amir Peretz, the Labor party's candidate for Israeli prime minister. Many of the Ashkenazim who have supported Labor election after election won't vote for Peretz, whom they regard as a loud-mouthed Moroccan from a dusty development town in the Negev – "one of them, rather than one of us."

It is hard to determine the percentage of Israelis with this racist attitude. In any case, it doesn't prevent Jews of Middle Eastern origin from reaching the top in Israeli public life. President Moshe Katzav was born in Iran, as was Minister of Defence Shaul Mofaz. Then there is the Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, a Sabra whose parents likewise came to Israel from Iran. Also worthy of mention is the former foreign minister and presently number two man in the Likud, Tunisian-born Silvan Shalom, Minister of Transport Meir Shitreet, who was brought here from Morocco as a child, and Iraqi immigrant Gideon Ezra, minister of internal security. They, I might add, are not the only ones.

What, then, is the special problem of Peretz? Why does he raise the hackles of European immigrants more than other politicos of Middle Eastern origin?

The social agenda of Peretz certainly bothers some people. He favors raising the minimum wage to $1,000 US a month – an increase of nearly 50 per cent – the provision of pensions to all citizens, a steep increase in funds for medical care and a string of other social welfare measures that would improve the life of a million underprivileged Israelis. At the same time, his critics charge, they would bankrupt the economy.

Also making him unacceptable to some is the fondness he displays for socialist terminology that went out of fashion in Israel a generation ago. Alone among the candidates, he speaks about meeting the needs of the proletariat.

But then he has a right to do so. His two major opponents, Ehud Olmert and Binyamin Netanyahu, grew up with a silver spoon in their respective mouths, while he, in contrast, spent his early years in relative poverty and hasn't forgotten it.

This doesn't cut any ice, however, with the immigrants from the former Soviet Union, many of whom – especially the older ones – are living in poverty and would greatly benefit from the reforms favored by Peretz. Indeed, Russia immigrants generally will not even consider voting for "that Moroccan."

Thus, when a Russian-language website recently asked surfers to select their preferred candidates for prime minister, they listed three people: Olmert (Kadima), Netanyahu (Likud) and Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu). They didn't bother to list Peretz.

With immigrants from the former Soviet Union making up perhaps 20 per cent of the electorate, their hostility is a very serious handicap.

Nechemia Meyers is a freelance writer in Rehovot, Israel.

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