Hope Is Like a Weed
The Hidden Columnists--Tom Friedman Edition (18 Nov Edition)

Maybe Tom and David Brooks are in Israel/Palestine together, as Friday's column--Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (full column available to Times Select subscribers)--also finds Friedman in that part of the world (Jerusalem in particular). Do you think they share a room to keep from spending their NYTimes per diem. Who snores the loudest? Anyhoo, the focus of the column is on the Israel's new Labor leader, Amir Peretz:

I've always said that in the Middle East, hope is a weed. Give it just a drop of water, a tiny opening and a splash of sunshine, and it will sprout through any crack in the rubble of war.

The best sign of that is the surprise election of Amir Peretz to head Israel's Labor Party. He beat the longtime Labor leader Shimon Peres (a good man) in a party vote last week. Amir Peretz is no weed, but his ability to suddenly sprout up at this time tells you a lot about the mood of cautious optimism here.

Why? Because Amir Peretz is a Moroccan-born Jew in a country that has never elected a non-European Jew as prime minister, even though Jews from Arab, Muslim and Asian lands make up half of Israel. Because Mr. Peretz rose inside the Labor Party not by commanding troops in war or holding a big national security job - the career path of previous prime ministers - but by commanding workers on strike as head of the country's biggest labor federation. Because Mr. Peretz is an unabashed land-for-peace dove at a time when the country is being led by its biggest hawk, Ariel Sharon. And finally, because Mr. Peretz is a modern social democrat, with real socialist roots in an age when the rock stars of Israel are its young, rich high-tech stars, and even the Labor Party is dominated by liberal business executives.

As a former Likud minister, Dan Meridor, said to me, "If the Labor Party were to actually represent the workers again - that would be a revolution!"

Such an anti-establishment politician could only emerge, and have a chance to win the prime ministership (new elections were announced yesterday for sometime before the end of March), at a time when Israelis feel they can relax a little bit and focus much more on work than war.

Friedman goes on to speculate on Peretz's chances of winning:

Will the right conditions prevail for Mr. Peretz to actually win? The deal just brokered by Condoleezza Rice that will open Gaza's borders to the world, for trade and labor, is really the key. If this deal proceeds, and Gaza is open, it has a chance to become more like Dubai and less like Mogadishu.

If that happens, and only if that happens, the peace process will move forward toward a two-state solution, including the West Bank. And the more that is resolved, the more likely it is that Israelis will consider voting - for the first time - for a social democrat rather than a security hawk. "That would constitute one of the most important earthquakes ever in Israeli politics," said the Israeli political theorist Yaron Ezrahi.

(See also today's Paul Krugman edition.)