Shimon Peres Endorses Isaac Herzog
With election one week away, Knesset race heats up
March 13, 2015
Tzipi Livni and Isaac Herzog, co- leaders of the Zionist Union party, in Tel Aviv on February 22, 2015.(MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)
With the Knesset election less than one week away, everyone from celebrities to pundits are weighing in. There’s another bold-face name to add to the list of endorsers: former Israeli President Shimon Peres, who today announced his support for Labor Party chairman Isaac Herzog, calling him a “level-headed leader who is reliable, and full of responsibility and dedication to the Israeli public.”
It’s no surprise that Peres, a longtime Labor leader, would throw his weight behind the up-and-coming politician known by the childhood nickname ‘Buji.’ After all, Peres served as prime minister during the presidency of his father, Isaac Herzog. (The Herzog family is political royalty in Israel; As Ruth Margolit wrote in her 2014 profile of Buji, “He is the scion of one of the most famous political families in Israel, whose influence and reach vaguely approximate a mash-up of the Kennedys and the Clintons.”)
Unmentioned in Peres’ remarks, though, was Tzipi Livni, the Kadima leader with whom Herzog has teamed up for the election. If elected, they’ll switch off holding the position of Prime Minister.
Related: Meet Isaac Herzog, the Israeli Politician Who Speaks English With a Democratic Accent
How Isaac Herzog Could Tilt Israeli Politics to the Left—Even If He Won’t Be Prime Minister
Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.
