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ANALYSIS / Mrs. Peretz's Sderot mayoral bid goes beyond mere feminism By Avirama Golan Tags: local elections  It is no secret. I have openly supported Ahlama Peretz from the moment she declared she would run for mayor. Even from Tel Aviv I would have supported her. Not only because she is a woman, but also because she is a woman. In an era when it seems that women can reach any position and any place, running for mayor of a peripheral town is still a very difficult task. But it is also easy for me to support her because she is not alone. Rather, she represents a group that is insisting on conducting an ideological campaign in Sderot, within the social context there. She's nice, they say in Sderot. They are good people. It's necessary to help them. But how is she going to run this city? By herself? We need a man to take control. And in fact, her political rivals are whispering loudly, "Amir [her husband, Labor MK Amir Peretz] is running the whole election campaign for her." So what is worse? A woman alone, or a woman with an experienced man behind her? Advertisement Truth to tell, neither. Ahlama Peretz is indeed making use of Amir Peretz's experience. He is deeply familiar with the local political game, but she and her colleagues see nothing wrong with this. "No one has any problem with the statement that 'behind every successful man stands a woman,'" says her close friend Yehudit Uliel, secretary general of the Na'amat women's organization in the western Negev, "but when a man stands behind his wife - is there something wrong?" In effect, Ahlama and Amir Peretz are making a comeback, for at least the second or third time, into local political activity. This time, too, they are working within a broad ideological movement. This is the group that at the begining of the 1980s sent Amir Peretz to run for council head, bringing about a dramatic change. Nearly all the members of the group are natives of Morocco, who arrived in Sderot at a very young age, have a college degree and are involved in social and educational activism. Most of them are left-wing, dovish social democrats. In a truly civilized country, Ahlama Peretz could have been the natural candidate of the party that Israel's Labor Party is supposed to be. She could have relied on party support and grown as a local political leader. But the Labor Party here has crashed in places larger than Sderot, and even Likud and Shas are weak here, compared to the new right - whose slogan is "Changing Direction," and who is promising to "clean up the city," after demanding a full-force invasion of Gaza during the time of the Qassams. A week ago, Ahlama Peretz presented an ambitious plan for the development of Sderot: a cultural center, a huge commercial center and a sophisticated country club. She's dreaming, said one of her rivals. That's true, Ahlama Peretz replied, I'm dreaming but I also know exactly how much each thing costs and how each of the plans can be carried out, and I already have support from Knesset members to cancel value added tax in Sderot. Anyway, what's so imaginary about a country club, when 20 years ago they built an Olympic swimming pool here and that's where all the swimming competitions were held? It could also be that a "leftist" woman, backed by a group of "leftists" with some downright feminists, daring to run in Sderot at all is a dream. But Ahlama's friends see these elections as one more part of the struggle for their home. By chance, and perhaps not by chance, the person who heads it happens to be a woman. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Never again Israel, Germany mark 70 years since the Night of the Broken Glass. Financial freefall Global financial storms threaten empire of Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

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