<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[BARAK’S DEADLY BLOW TO THE LABOUR&nbsp;PARTY]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p class="byline"> Posted  			by desertpeace			on Friday, 			January 21, 			2011 			at 11:19 am. </p>
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<h1><span style="color:#808000;font-family:Verdana;font-size:large;">Barak’s deadly blow to  Labour</span></h1>
<div id="lead"><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">With  the left in Israeli politics all but  collapsing entirely, the  neo-fascist right wing is virtually unopposed, reports  Khalid Amayreh  in occupied Jerusalem </span></div>
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<td><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:small;"><strong>Ehud  Barak</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">In a dramatic  though not entirely unexpected step,  Israeli Defence Minister Ehud  Barak, leader of the Israeli Labour Party, decided  this week to leave  the party, along with three others of his colleagues,  effectively  condemning the party to irrelevance.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">The  socialist-Zionist party that ruled Israel,  especially during its  formative years up until 1977, had been in a state of  disarray for a  long time, with several key party leaders accusing Barak of  destroying  the party by succumbing to the rightwing agenda of the current  Israeli  government.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Israeli Prime  Minister Binyamin Netanyahu seemed  quite pleased with the rupture,  saying it ensured that his government would live  for a long time to  come.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Barak’s  decision to leave the Labour Party and set  up his own faction leaves  the embattled party with only eight seats in the  Knesset. Three cabinet  ministers affiliated with Labour quit their portfolios,  saying they  will devote themselves “to rebuilding the party and restoring its   former glory”.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Barak had been  facing significant challenges from  members demanding his ouster,  citing “his absolute humiliating subservience” to  the rightwing  government. Hence Barak’s departure can be viewed as a sort of   pre-emptive action against his critics — an action that critics say  contains  clear elements of conspiracy and vindictiveness.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">His former  colleagues in the party accused Barak of  betraying the Labour movement,  of self-centeredness, and spitefulness. “Barak  brought tragedy to the  Labour Party, sullied it and broke it apart,” said Labour  MK Shelly  Yachimovich, lambasting Barak for the “corrupt and opportunist” way in   which he chose to split from the party. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Another party  leader, Eitan Cabel, described  Barak’s coup as proof that “these people  have destroyed the Labour party and  that they must ask me and my  colleagues for forgiveness.” </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Meanwhile, the  remaining “Labourites” are trying to  put the best possible face on the  situation. Veteran Labour leader Binyamin  Ben-Eliezer said the party  would eventually overcome its ordeal: “Labour has had  its ups and  downs, and I have no doubt that Labour will return to what it once   was.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Ben-Eliezer  said he would do whatever was necessary  to help rehabilitate the party.  He is likely to become temporary chairman of the  dwindling party until  a race is held to succeed Barak.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Another Barak  critic, Minorities Affairs Minister  Avishay Baverman said the party  would seize on the opportunity left by Barak’s  departure: “In every  crisis there is opportunity. The main problem of the Labour  Party is  that it didn’t stand up for its ideals. Barak decided to support Likud   and [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman, instead of fighting for the  values of  Labour. Sharon left Likud to advance peace. Barak is  splitting from Labour to be  a second rate Likudnik at best, and another  Lieberman at worst.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Although  Barak’s desertion from the party is  unlikely to have immediate  political ramifications in Israel, the dramatic split  in what once was  the ultimate left Zionist party will boost the confidence of  the  Netanyahu government. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Netanyahu  claimed that the Labour split would help  the cause of peace with the  Palestinians. The hawkish Israeli premier suggested  that the blow would  make the Palestinians understand that the Israeli government  will not  collapse anytime soon, and that they will have no choice but to submit   to Israel’s conditions.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">“The  Palestinians saw the threats of the Labour  ministers and toughened  their stance because they thought the Israeli government  was about to  collapse. Now they understand the government is going nowhere and  they  will return to negotiations.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">The Israeli newspaper <em>Haaretz</em> quoted a  senior Israeli official, who had been involved in negotiating  with the  Palestinians for 15 years, as saying: “if officials in the  prime minister’s  bureau think that this is the way to advance the peace  process then they are  disconnected from reality.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Netanyahu has  been offering the weak Palestinian  Authority a small and deformed  state, leaving much of the West Bank — including  virtually all of  occupied East Jerusalem — in Israeli hands. Most Palestinians,   including Fatah, the party of Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas,  view such  a settlement as the liquidation of the Palestinian national  cause and  inalienable Palestinian rights.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">It is  uncertain what road the new Barak faction,  called “Independence”, will  travel. According to a quick poll carried out by the  Panels polling  institute for the Knesset Channel, three per cent of the Israeli  public  said they would vote for Barak’s party.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Barak said the  faction would be centrist and  Zionist. However, there is little doubt  that should Barak maintain his stamp and  hegemony on the new party, it  would have either of two choices: joining the  effectively neo-fascist  right-wing camp, or dying down as an opportunistic group  unaccepted by  authentic right-wingers and rejected by an embittered and betrayed   mother party.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">There is no  doubt that the Israeli leftist camp is  going through difficult times,  not only because of the blow that has been dealt  to the Labour Party.  Israeli society itself has been drifting towards extreme  nationalism,  in both its religious and secular forms. Jingoism, chauvinism,  anti-  internationalism, xenophobia, and plain racism already have deep roots  in  Israel. One Israeli cabinet minister declared recently: “We are  already a  fascist state.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Hence, with or  without the rupture of the Labour  Party, Israel was already charting a  dangerous course. A few days ago, an  Israeli journal quoted several  prominent rabbis as calling for creating  concentration camps for the  Palestinians. The Nazi-minded rabbis, who included  the rabbi of Safad,  Shlomo Eliahu, said in their “advisory opinion” that it was  the duty of  all devout Jews to help send Palestinians to the ovens.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">The edict  issued said the Bible called on all Jews  to annihilate the  Palestinians. The manifestly criminal call was scantily  covered by the  media and generated negligible reactions from Israeli society. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">A few weeks  ago, the spiritual mentor of the Shas  fundamentalist party, Ovadia  Yosef, said during a Sabbath homily that all  non-Jews were effectively  donkeys — animals of burden created by the Almighty  in human shape only  in deference to Jews. Yosef has hundreds of thousands of  loyalists and  followers ready and willing to carry out his instructions to the   letter.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;">Written <a href="http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1032/re8.htm">FOR</a></span></p>
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<p><a href="http://ps.hadnews.com/barak%e2%80%99s-deadly-blow-to-the-labour-party.htm">BARAK’S DEADLY BLOW TO THE LABOUR PARTY at PS.HADNEWS.COM</a>.</p>
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