“Not one of their own”

Three powerful bombs –not to mention the right and Shimon Peres- are expected to damage Amir Peretz’ accession to the post of Prime Minister: two of them were placed by the two most powerful opinion groups of the country and also by a scary genius. If Peretz finds a way to deactivate them, he’ll succeed. If he doesn’t, he’ll fail.
The first bomb, of course, was placed by the upper class. It’s not necessary to go into details about this community and its interest in preventing the accession to power of the social ideas advocated by Peretz. He knows this group very well, he’s been dealing with them for a long time and he needs no advice to handle it.
The second bomb is less familiar: the military and police community. It’s not used to being commanded by a civilian and if Peretz makes it to power with no military record at all, with no glorious and cruel history behind him, he’ll be a threat to all those who believe in the Armed Forces, the advocates of a “Shin Bet State.” If Peretz is elected, an unthinkable revolution will take place: the accession to power of a man who has never heard the sound of bullets in a country where this is something normal.
A civilian leader that will assess reality from a point of view that is different from the one you have in a tank or in the telescopic sights of a rifle, a man who will consider the Palestinians as human beings and not as “people wanted by the police”, a man that would know that military power is not the best solution and that poverty and social decomposition are as dangerous for the country as the Islamic Jihad...a man like this would be a fortune for our country.
And, very well placed in the middle of his race, awaits the third bomb. It’s the most difficult one to deactivate. Peretz is a mizrahi, an Eastern Jew –and, from Morocco!!, in addition -, that is, he is a worker, a mestizo from the lowest social class. The capacity of Israeli society to accept a Prime Minister with such origins, who speaks this language, is something that remains to be seen. Even hidden in a bottle, the genies of racism and discrimination are always willing to come out in our country. It’s usually denied, the proper political attitude hides them with all kind of verbal tricks, but such genies are still there.