More on Amir Peretz's victory

Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian offers an interesting analysis of how the election of Peretz to leader of Israel's Labour party could re-energise the country's peace camp...

Already people are speaking of a revolution in the country's politics, a new "Peretzstroika" according to the veteran peace activist Uri Avnery (who also noted that the Hebrew word "peretz" could be read as "breakthrough"). The beleaguered Israeli left is hailing the new leader's arrival as the best news since the collapse of the Camp David peace process five years ago.

Why the excitement? Start with Peretz's position on the central question, the conflict with the Palestinians. For two decades - long before it was fashionable - he has advocated a Palestinian state. He calls now for an end to Ariel Sharon's unilateralism and a renewed pursuit of a negotiated peace, engaging with the Palestinians directly. He dares to speak of a return to the "path of Oslo", brave in a country where the architects of the 1993 accords are routinely referred to as the "Oslo criminals".

There is immediate politics in this, marking a clean break with the outgoing Labour leader, Shimon Peres - the grand old man who has moved in Israel's ruling circles since before Peretz was born in 1952. While Peres was prepared to let Labour serve as Likud's hind legs in a national coalition, barely questioning Sharon's unilateralist approach, Peretz wants out. He is pushing for Labour to bolt now, triggering early elections by next spring.

But there is more to Peretz's stance than electoral calculus. In his speech to the rally that gathered on Saturday to mark the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Peretz called for a "moral road map, whose guiding star is respect for human dignity", arguing that Israel's continued rule over the Palestinians was exacting a moral cost on Israelis themselves. "A moral road map is ending the occupation and signing a permanent agreement," he said, before invoking Martin Luther King to declare that he too had a dream - that Palestinian and Israeli children would one day "play together and build a common future."

He also sounds a note of caution...

Of course, Israeli politicians have talked like this before. In 2002, in an another upset victory, the dovish Amram Mitzna became Labour leader and got peaceniks excited - only to be wiped out by Sharon in a landslide. But this time there is a crucial difference.

Peretz is from what used to be known as "the Second Israel", Jews with roots in the Muslim or Arab world: in today's argot, Mizrachim.

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He is himself a working-class man from Sderot, one who can speak to the millions lost to Labour for so long. He is no token, but an authentic grassroots leader, one who has fought hard for workers' rights and equality, eventually running the Histradut, Israel's TUC