Peretz, Amir

(1952- )

   Born in Boujad, Morocco, on 9 March 1952 as Armand Peretz, Peretz immigrated (see ALIYA) with his family to Israel in 1956. Like many others from Arab and African countries arriving in Israel in the 1950s, his family was settled in a frontier development town, Sderot in the Negev Desert close to the border with the Gaza Strip.

   Peretz was elected mayor of Sderot in 1983 at the age of 31. He was first elected to the Knesset in 1988 on the Israel Labor Party list. He became chairman of the Histadrut in December 1995. Peretz formed the breakaway Am Echad (One People) Worker's Party in 1999; it won two Knesset seats in 1999 and three seats in 2003. In May 2004, Peretz and Am Ehad agreed to be reintegrated with the Israel Labor Party. Surprising most pundits and pollsters, he won the 9 November 2005 Labor leadership primary, taking 42 percent of the votes as against 40 percent for Shimon Peres and 17 percent for Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. He became the first Moroccan-born politician to lead a major Israeli political party. After winning this election, Peretz resigned his post at the Histadrut. He subsequently withdrew Labor from the Ariel Sharon-led government.

   The results of the 26 March 2006 Knesset election of the 17th Knesset were mixed for Peretz. Although the number of Knesset seats won by the Israel Labor Party actually dropped by 2 from the previous Knesset election in 2003 (19, down from 21), the party's success in making inroads in the traditionally Likud-dominated development towns of the Negev Desert was in large measure viewed as an affirmation of Peretz's leadership.

   At the same time, many pundits suggested that Peretz was outma-neuvered in the coalition-building process by Prime Minister Elect Ehud Olmert into accepting the defense portfolio in May 2006 rather than finance or a social affairs ministry, which had been Peretz's declared preferences. There were widespread public calls for Peretz to resign as defense minister over his handling of the Second Lebanon War (2006) as well as growing discontent within the Labor Party about his leadership.

   Peretz was defeated in the first round of voting in the Israel Labor Party leadership primary that was ultimately won by former party leader and prime minister Ehud Barak in June 2007. Peretz subsequently relinquished to Barak his position as defense minister in the Kadima-led coalition government headed by Prime Minister Olmert.