Labour's 'man of the people'

By Martin Patience
BBC News website, Jerusalem

The sweets rained down from the four-floor apartment block as the diminutive Labour party leader Amir Peretz entered the building's unlit stairwell.

Amir Peretz is focusing his party's energies on social issues

Hanging out of their windows, the residents were eager to greet the politician who likes to be seen as a man of the people.

The brief shower of confectionery was a mark of respect that many in the rundown housing estate in the Kamonimn neighbourhood in Jerusalem feel for the recently appointed Labour party leader.

It is a Jewish custom to throw sweets at teenagers celebrating their Bar Mitzvah or the bride and groom at their wedding.

About 50 residents from the housing estate, along with a couple of TV camera crews, crammed into one of the building's tiny apartments to hear Mr Peretz deliver an impassioned sermon.

"Don't let the government humiliate you by making you beg as a single mother," Mr Peretz, sporting his trademark bushy moustache, told the young women whose home he was sitting in.

In his four months as Labour party leader, it is these kind of remarks that have built Mr Peretz's reputation as a vocal champion of the Israeli poor.

In the run-up to elections, mainstream Israeli political parties normally make the issue of security their priority.

'Breaking the mould'

While Mr Peretz says that he will speak with moderate Palestinians - he met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last month - he has chosen to focus his party's energies on social issues; promising to tackle child poverty, raise pensions for the elderly, and increase the average wage to a $1,000 a month.

We can solve poverty tomorrow but peace and security are going to take a lot longer than that Gideon Ben Israel

For many Israelis, Mr Peretz is regarded as a politician who breaks the mould.

In the Labour leadership election, he surprisingly defeated the former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres to become party leader.

Born in Morocco, Mr Peretz is the first non-European Jew to head the Labour party.

In Israeli society, where there are tensions between Jews originally from Europe and those from north Africa and the Middle East, this was a radical shift.

Even though Labour are currently second in the opinion polls, the front-running Kadima party have almost double their support, and are unlikely to be caught.

But part of Mr Peretz's appeal with Israelis is his approachability.

Surrounded by four bodyguards as he visited this poor neighbourhood, Mr Peretz was wearing a black suit and open-necked white shirt that made him look more like a funeral director than a politician.

'Best bet for pensioners'

People flocked to shake his hand or receive a peck on the cheek.

Shuffling through the neighbourhood with two carrier bags of empty glass bottles, a tramp spotted Mr Peretz in the distance and put his thumbs up in the air and said: "He's good for the poor."

For one young female supporter, the Labour party leader's commitment to the social issues also appealed.

"He seems to really care," she said, standing beside Mr Peretz's blue election bus.

All this is good news for the party, insists 80-year-old Gideon Ben Israel, who is the oldest candidate on the Labour party list and was accompanying Mr Peretz as he campaigned.

He praises Mr Peretz for focusing on social issues rather than security matters.

"My generation was the generation that built Israel," says Mr Israel. "The Labour party are the best bet for pensioners."

Mr Gideon, who last served as a Labour Knesset member in the 1960s, insists that the focus of the Israeli election is all wrong.

"We can solve poverty tomorrow," he says, "but peace and security are going to take a lot longer than that."

But in a country where the issue of security can mean the matter of life and death, Mr Peretz's priorities on improving life for the poor may have to wait.