Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 09:23:14 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: A REAL Labor Party in Israel??


Forwarding this to the lists. From the LP list.

Bob Malecki
>Internal Crisis in Likud and Labor Deepens 
>                     Toward An
>                     Independent
>                     Workers' Party? 
>
>                     by Eric Lee
>
>                     Also in this issue:
>
>                          Are Israel's Labor Laws Anti-Union? 
>                          Sharansky Answers BibiWATCH 
>                          "Bibi, open the tunnel." 
>
>Yesterday, about fifty Likud leaders, supporters of Prime Minister
>Binyamin Netanyahu, met in Tel Aviv to discuss the rapid disintegration
>of their political party. The meeting, organized by former Israeli
>Ambassador to the U.S. Zalman Shuval, was characterized by an
>atmosphere of pessimism regarding the future of the Likud.
>
>For example, the head of the Likud in Haifa reported that whereas four
>years ago, the party recruited 7,000 members to its ranks in that city,
>this year it has only attracted 1,000 members. In the last month alone,
>600 Likud members in Haifa instructed their banks to stop automatic
>payments of membership dues to the party.
>
>There's no question that one of the things breaking up the Likud is the
>crisis over Hebron, and the sense among many hard-core rightists that
>Netanyahu is caving in to U.S. pressure and will continue to make
>concessions down the road.
>
>But another factor is what's happening in the Israeli economy and the
>increasing alienation of the Likud's working class base from the
>"Thatcherite revolution" Mr. Netanyahu is proposing.
>
>Last week's general strike in the public sector gave clues of a possible
>realignment of Israeli politics taking place, one which might in the
>long
>run displace the current sterile hawk/dove division by a new politics
>based on social class. As Amos Oz has long suggested, Israeli
>politics may be moving from a discussion of borders to a
>discussion of what kind of society we want within those borders.
>
>In a fascinating article analyzing the resurgence of militant trade
>unionism and class politics, Ha'aretz political columnist Hana Kim
>reported on Friday the first serious talk of the formation of a workers'
>party in Israel.
>
>According to Kim, Louis Roth, the chairman of the workers' council at
>Bank Leumi (one of the two largest banks) and Chaim Katz, chairman
>of the workers council at Israel Military Industries, began last week
>talking up the idea of an independent workers' party.
>
>It should be noted that Israel already has a Labor Party, an affiliate
>of
>the Socialist International, although many Labor Party leaders are
>themselves estranged from the trade union movement in this country.
>Some of Israel's top industrialists are identified closely with that
>party
>and yet they openly denounced last week's strike and sided with
>Netanyahu.
>
>Strangely, Histadrut chairman Amir Peretz, a Labor Party member
>himself, responded to the Roth-Katz proposal without condemning it:
>
>"The workers' leaders feel that a new situation has emerged . . .
>maybe it's best to build ourselves up as a 'balance of power' in the
>Knesset to protect our interests. I'm hearing about this direction
>[building a workers' party] not only at the level of the workers'
>leaders, but also out in the field. There are the first buds, there's
>the chemistry, but sometimes one shouldn't translate Utopian
>ideas into reality . . . In spite of that, I can't promise that this
>won't happen. I'm divided myself. There's no doubt that today
>the workers don't have enough allies in the Knesset."
>
>Militant workers at Haifa Chemicals booed Labor Party politicians like
>Yosi Beilin -- while cheering the Communist union leader Binyamin
>Gonen. And the growing rift between Labor Party industrialists like
>Benny Gaon and trade unionists like Amir Peretz seems to make their
>continued co-existence in a single party impossible.
>
>Likud supporters in the workers' councils were among the strike
>leaders last week, and some of them rejected personal appeals coming
>from their party's leadership to call off what Netanyahu was labelling a
>"political" strike. In some sectors, Likud unionists were more militant
>than their Labor party counterparts.
>
>We are seeing signs in both major parties of a break-up based along
>class lines.
>
>Whether an independent workers party will emerge is presently
>unclear. But the very fact that the idea has been proposed marks a
>sea-change in Israeli politics.
>
>





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