Israeli Political Roundup
The efforts that we referenced yesterday - to form a new government under the current Knesset and thereby put off elections for another year - are apparently failing. Histadrut union hack - excuse us, former Histadrut union hack - and Labor Party Chairman Amir Peretz is claiming that he turned down offers to take the reigns and run the government for a year, and the rest of the article passes on rejections of varying viciousness from other parties and factions.
Meanwhile, on the Israeli far Left, Yossi Beilin hasn't been removed from his leadership post, but it looks like that as much because of apathy as anything else. Lots of anger within the party, but who really cares about Meretz when Labor is Israel's new far Left party.
Likud
Benjamin Netanyahu has apparently concluded that nothing that he could possibly say about Sharon's Kadima party could ever be at all credible, and has shifted to attacking Peretz and Peretz's Histadrut ties. In these attacks, he is undoubtedly counting on the fact that most of the really vicious things that one could say about Peretz's thugishness and economic irresponsibility are true:
Netanyahu continued by noting the 606 strikes carried out during the last ten years, saying that came out to roughly a strike per week. The former finance minister figured that meant 15 million workdays were lost, and over NIS 16.5 billion. He continued to attack Peretz, claiming that Israel led the world in strikes, "thanks to the world champion of strikes [Peretz], who is to speak here after me." Netanyahu noted that Israel's top position in the amount of strikes beat Italy, the second-place holder, by seven times.
As Finance Minister, of course, Netanyahu regularly battled Peretz's attempts to grind the Israeli economy to a halt. In all fairness, Netanyahu was a fantastic Finance Minister - too bad his political ambitions got the better of him.
Labor
Amir Peretz continues to stack Labor with sycophants and fellow union hacks. Labor veterans are expressing surprise and dismay that a backstabber from a different party would, upon willing the Chairmanship, stab them in the back and bring in people from a different party.
Kadima
All newspapers made a big deal of Sharon's offer to elder statesman Peres - specifically, any post he wants. This confidence and generosity, of course, is in stark contrast to the ugly insults still being hurled daily at Peres from his old colleagues in the Labor Party - a party he helped to build and repeatedly saved. JPost.com Staff also managed to insert the phrase "the corpulent Sharon" into the article, which betrays something in the way of a failure to grasp some tonal subtleties of the English language. Still true though.
Likud
Benjamin Netanyahu has apparently concluded that nothing that he could possibly say about Sharon's Kadima party could ever be at all credible, and has shifted to attacking Peretz and Peretz's Histadrut ties. In these attacks, he is undoubtedly counting on the fact that most of the really vicious things that one could say about Peretz's thugishness and economic irresponsibility are true:
Netanyahu continued by noting the 606 strikes carried out during the last ten years, saying that came out to roughly a strike per week. The former finance minister figured that meant 15 million workdays were lost, and over NIS 16.5 billion. He continued to attack Peretz, claiming that Israel led the world in strikes, "thanks to the world champion of strikes [Peretz], who is to speak here after me." Netanyahu noted that Israel's top position in the amount of strikes beat Italy, the second-place holder, by seven times.
As Finance Minister, of course, Netanyahu regularly battled Peretz's attempts to grind the Israeli economy to a halt. In all fairness, Netanyahu was a fantastic Finance Minister - too bad his political ambitions got the better of him.
Labor
Amir Peretz continues to stack Labor with sycophants and fellow union hacks. Labor veterans are expressing surprise and dismay that a backstabber from a different party would, upon willing the Chairmanship, stab them in the back and bring in people from a different party.
Kadima
All newspapers made a big deal of Sharon's offer to elder statesman Peres - specifically, any post he wants. This confidence and generosity, of course, is in stark contrast to the ugly insults still being hurled daily at Peres from his old colleagues in the Labor Party - a party he helped to build and repeatedly saved. JPost.com Staff also managed to insert the phrase "the corpulent Sharon" into the article, which betrays something in the way of a failure to grasp some tonal subtleties of the English language. Still true though.
