Israel: Shimon Peres joins Sharon’s new party

“I am joining the great and important partnership, and I’m doing it very consciously and out of a sense of obligation and privilege,” Peres declared. “[We] need to continue the peace process without stopping ... we must continue the momentum of our own initiative and outlook in this great and true partnership with the other side.”

Peres’s declared commitment to peace is a fraud. Kadima is the political vehicle for Sharon—a man who has based his entire career on Israeli expansionism and attacks on the Palestinian people.

The political union of the elder statesman of Labour Zionism with the war criminal Sharon represents an acute expression of the profound crisis of the Israeli state. Traditional conceptions of “left” and “right” wing politics no longer have any real relevance with regard to official Israeli politics. Nor does the country have any genuine opposition party. The entire political establishment is united behind Sharon’s strategy of annexing East Jerusalem and large swathes of the West Bank.

Labour has consistently lined up behind Sharon ever since his election as prime minister in 2001. As Likud’s junior partner in the “national unity” government, Labour has spent the past year providing left-wing cover for the unilateral disengagement from Gaza.

Sharon openly admitted to his supporters in Israel that the tactical withdrawal of the 9,000 settlers from Gaza had nothing to do with any peace settlement, and was instead aimed at winning US support for Israel’s permanent annexation of Palestinian land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Labour Party’s role has been to promote the myth favoured by the Bush administration that “unilateral disengagement” from Gaza—which leaves Israel in military control and can be reversed at any time—is a major Israeli concession and represented a step towards a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/pere-d16.shtml