.
Labor shakes up Israeli politics
(Haaretz) – Shelly Yachimovich promises she will not change: Even after being elected, she does not intend to become a distinguished stateswoman and feverishly draft peace plans. She will stick to her guns: social welfare, social democracy, anti-concentration, anti-tycoon, etc. She will talk about only those issues.
If she is asked about the Quartet, about the negotiating freeze, she will answer in general terms, in the spirit of the moderate left, and return immediately to the social-democratic issues. That has been her winning card so far, and it will be her only card.
It doesn’t bother Yachimovich that left-wing writers are accusing her of not being left wing. Let them, she says. Looking back, she sees how Labor, whose only banner was the peace process, kept losing relevance until it almost disappeared.
The most prominent number in the Haaretz-Dialog poll this week concerns Labor’s great leap forward: For the first time, it passed Kadima and once more became the country’s second-largest party (22 seats ).
Quite different from political analysts’ opinion the Quartet offers a new Roadmap to Peace at the United Nations
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
