Israeli elections

Another Peres lost. Another Israeli election. ZZZZZZZZ.

NYTIMES:

The new leader of Israel's Labor Party said Thursday that he intended to pull his center-left party out of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition government, a move almost certain to force the government to resign and hold new elections within months.
Amir Peretz, the country's most prominent labor union leader for the past decade, scored a major upset on Wednesday by ousting Shimon Peres as chairman of the Labor Party in a vote by its members.
Mr. Peretz's surprise victory, with 42 percent of the vote to 40 percent for Mr. Peres, was announced at dawn on Thursday. Shortly afterward, Mr. Peretz said he would make good on his campaign promise to withdraw Labor from the coalition, based on his opposition to government economic policies that he says hurt poor and working-class Israelis.