TEL AVIV, Israel, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Israeli trade unionist Amir Perez Friday clinched his victory in the race for the Labor Party's leadership when his phone rang shortly after 9 a.m.
His main rival, Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, was on the other side acknowledging defeat and congratulating him. Peres withdrew his appeal against the election results that gave Perez a narrow but decisive 2.3 percent edge in the 64,000 ballots.
Labor has always been Israel's biggest or second-biggest party, and in recent months has been Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's most loyal coalition partner.
Now it has a new leader who -- if he gets his way -- is likely to rattle Israel's political system. To begin with, he wants to quit the coalition and head for early elections.
Perez, whose name is pronounced Perets, is a super-dove and his official resume published in the Knesset's Who's Who notes he is a member of Peace Now.
One of the first things he did after winning the elections was to go to the grave of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was slain because of his peace policies. Perez kissed the cold stone.
"We will not let (them) kill the peace. We won't let anybody forget," he declared.
The Haaretz newspaper Friday noted Perez began his dialogue with Palestine Liberation Organization activists more than 20 years ago when such contacts were illegal.
His friends quote him as having said that the day after he becomes prime minister, he will invite Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss a permanent settlement, something Abbas has been demanding.
Unlike Sharon, there will be no more unilateral disengagements, dictates and demands that the Palestinians eradicate the infrastructure of terror before anything else happens, Haaretz quoted those friends' reports.
It is the first time a leading Israeli party has chosen as its candidate for prime minister a man who was born in an Arab country and who has a civilian background. The only other Jew from an Arab country who served in such a position was Binyamin Ben Eliezer, who was born in Iraq, but he came from the military establishment where he had been a brigadier general.
Perez represents what many Israelis considered the "second Israel." These are Jews from Arab countries, usually poor, who often live in outlying towns and have complained that the Ashkenazi elite, whose families immigrated from Europe, discriminated against them.
Perez, 54, was born in Morocco, came to Israel at the age of four, and the Knesset's Who's Who sites his education as "Sderot high school." When asked to list the languages he speaks, he cited one: Hebrew. His English is poor and when asked to explain an English spelling of his name, which is phonetically different from the Hebrew, he shrugged: "That's the way is in my passport."
He joined the paratroopers, was injured when an armored personnel carrier overturned, left the army at the rank of captain and then -- still in a wheelchair -- engaged in agriculture, growing flowers. He entered politics, became Sderot's mayor and then head of the labor federation.
Perez still lives in Sderot, which this year was hit by Palestinian Qassam rockets. Sharon's farm is nearby.
Perez rose to power on social issues and said he wants to shape Labor as a social-democratic party.
"More than 1.5 million people live below the poverty line. There are hundreds of thousands of old people who do not understand why the state is degrading them," he said in his victory speech.
In an interview to Yediot Aharonot published Friday, he said his dream is that "in two years there will be no poor child in the state of Israel, not one degraded old man who will ferret through the garbage, and no more kitchen soups."
He has led workers' strikes but won a good reputation with the employers.
Industrialist Dan Propper, a former president of the Manufacturers' Association, told United Press International Perez is "a reasonable man. ... (He) is not easy, insists on his positions, but we succeeded in reaching conclusions that in the final analysis were also good for the economy."
In public appearances he comes across as energetic and charismatic. His most noticeable trademark is his Stalin-style mustache and he once demonstrated how he eats a jam sandwich without staining his facial hair: He turns the bread upside-down and eats it before the jam spills onto his pants.
His victory sent ripples throughout the political system since a Labor Party with a social message and a Moroccan-born leader could draw voters from the Likud and Shas. The Likud won much, and Shas all of its support from "the second Israel."
Likud's Transport Minister Meir Sheetrit, whose family also came from Morocco, said Thursday many of the 1.5 million "Moroccans" in Israel might support Perez "only because of this."
Two public opinion polls published Friday already showed increased support for Labor. If elections were held now, Labor would have gained five seats to become a faction of 27 legislators, the Likud would drop from 40 to 37 mandates and Shas would lose a seat, according to a poll that the Maariv newspaper commissioned.
His immediate task is to get the party's other leaders to support him, for example in his demand to quit the coalition.
Labor's internal politics have been troublesome for some of his predecessors such as Amram Mitzna, a decent man who quit the top slot and is now a regular Knesset member.
Perez needs a majority in the party's institutions in order to quit the coalition.
His desire to present a very clear alternative to the Likud could induce more members to opt for leaving Sharon's coalition. Hence early elections are almost certain.
Another option is a split in which Vice Premier Peres and some of his close supporters would quit Labor at the same time as Sharon and some his supporters leave the hawkish Likud.
Some people have already advised Peres to leave Labor.
Haaretz commissioned a poll in which people were asked: "If elections were held today with Perez leading Labor, Binyamin Netanyahu heading the Likud, and Sharon and Peres leading a new party, whom would you vote for?"
The Peres-Sharon party would get 32 mandates, Labor 27, Likud 25 and several other parties sharing the rest.
An aide to Peres told UPI, the vice-premier will not quit.
"It is still too early," he said.
Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim, of Likud, sounded skeptical about the prospects of a new party. He told UPI he believed Perez' appearance might force the Likud members to close ranks. With the withdrawal from Gaza over, the differences within the Likud over the West Bank are not that great, he maintained.
"With Amir Perez there is a new situation," but some people would find it hard to break away from their parties and form something new, Boim continued.
"I was born in the Likud. ... It's not easy to say, 'Let's change flats, build a new house. It's not impossible but I am not sure it should be a goal. I am not sure we have reached this point," he said.
And he said so just four days after some of his colleagues in the Likud Knesset faction helped the opposition defeat Sharon's motion to make him a minister.
