Amir Peretz (Hebrew: עמיר פרץ; born 9 March 1952) is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party.

His subsequent tenure as Defense Minister included the 2006 Lebanon War and approval of the Iron Dome defence system in early 2007.

In December 2012, he resigned from the Knesset after leaving Labor to join the new Hatnuah party, but soon returned to the legislature after being re-elected in the January 2013 elections.

In 1994, after failing in a previous bid for Histadrut leadership, Peretz joined forces with Haim Ramon to contest control of the then powerful trade union federation.

During his early years at the helm of the Histadrut, Peretz was regarded as a militant firebrand, with an easy hand on the trigger of general strikes.

Sometimes the pretext for declaring a general strike would be an inopportune statement by the finance minister, as had been the case with Ya'akov Ne'eman in 1996.

During the tenure of Benjamin Netanyahu as finance minister (February 2003 – August 2005), Peretz was fairly cooperative with the government in a series of structural and financial reforms that moved Israel towards a more market-oriented economy.

[citation needed] Peretz won 42% of the vote compared to 40% for Peres and 17% for former defence minister and party leader Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.

During his period as Labor Party leader, Peretz nominated an Arab Muslim Israeli, Raleb Majadele, to be Minister of Culture, Science and Sports.

His performance as a Minister of Defense during the Second Lebanon War was deemed disappointing, which led to early elections for the Labor Party leadership.

During his term as Defense Minister, the Second Lebanon war erupted following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah from Israel's northern border.

After losing the internal elections in the Labor party to Ehud Barak, Peretz quit the defence ministry in June 2007.

He opposed Ehud Barak's decision to enter a coalition government headed by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the lead up to the September general elections, Peretz promised to not join a Netanyahu-led government, and in a stunt shaved off his iconic mustache, stating “I decided to remove my mustache so that all of Israel will understand exactly what I’m saying and will be able to read my lips — I won’t sit with Bibi.”[12] On 22 April 2020, following the 2020 Israeli legislative election, Labor announced that it will join the Netanyahu-Gantz coalition, with Peretz serving as Minister of the Economy.

[13][14][15] Despite agreeing to join the new government, Peretz also stated that he and other Labor MKs will still vote against a proposed West Bank annexation plan.

He had described the conflict as having mutated Israeli politics, so that the traditional left-right distinctions do not hold: Instead of supporting a social-democratic left which would advance their cause, the lower classes, mostly of Middle Eastern Jewish origins, were diverted to the right by the fanning of nationalist tendencies.

Peretz claimed that this is why he saw an intrinsic connection between a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the resolving of Israel's internal social tensions.

[26] Following Peretz's entry into government, however, perceptions of his views towards Palestinians changed, especially as the Defense Minister who led the military in the conflict in Lebanon and with the Hamas group in and around the Gaza Strip.

"[29] Amir Peretz was hailed during Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012 as a defence visionary for having had the foresight while in office back in 2006–2007 to face down myriad sceptics and push for the development of Iron Dome, Israel's unique anti-rocket interceptor system.