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<div class="details3"><strong> January 21, 2011| by Ran HaCohen &#8212; Antiwar.com</strong></div>
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<p>In an unusual scandal even for cynical Israeli politics,  &#8220;Defense&#8221; Minister Ehud Barak, together with a four other rather  anonymous Knesset members, left the party officially named &#8220;Labor under  the leadership of Ehud Barak&#8221; and turned into a satellite faction,  ironically called &#8220;Independence,&#8221; of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud.</p>
<p>In this case, as all along Barak’s public career, analysts tend to  overemphasize the personal aspect of Barak’s treacherous conduct: with  his leadership threatened within Labor, Barak feared his party might  force him to leave the coalition and lose his post as minister of  defense I’d like to claim that Barak’s latest move, as so many of his  previous ones, can be better interpreted as a political statement  motivated by his far-right militaristic, pro-occupation conviction.</p>
<p><strong>Breaking the Peace Camp</strong></p>
<p>Ever since he entered politics, I have considered Barak to be one of  the most dangerous politicians in the Middle East. His greatest  achievement was, in the year 2000, the destruction of the Israeli peace  camp, from which the Israeli left has not yet recovered. Traditionally,  the Israeli right-wing’s position has been: &#8220;We don’t trust the Arabs  (or Palestinians, Gentiles, anti-Semites), so we cannot make peace with  them,&#8221; whereas the left-wing was ready to take risks (specifically,  withdrawal for occupied land) in order to try the option of peace.</p>
<p>Barak was elected Prime Minister in 1999 by the Israeli peace camp.  But the professional warrior and former chief of staff was in fact a  far-right Trojan horse within the Israeli left. The fact that he had  consistently opposed the Oslo Process was silenced and forgotten, so  that his rapid termination of that Process with the bloody Intifada in  2000 could be portrayed as a great surprise, not as a premeditated plan,  and blamed on the Palestinians. For home and global consumption, Barak  invented the legend that he generously offered the Palestinians to end  the occupation, but that they refused. This lie was propagated by the  uncritical Israeli media, and conceived as a true story – as if Barak  had really offered to end the occupation; And then as a true history –  as if Barak had actually ended the occupation. The Israeli left –  deranged by the betrayal of its own leader and overwhelmed by the  horrors of the Intifada – behaved as if Barak had actually withdrawn  from the Palestinian Territories and dismantled the settlements, but the  Palestinians in return had denied Israel’s right to exist and reacted  with ruthless violence, proving the right-wing’s thesis. Under Barak as  leader of the Peace Camp, then, the Israeli Peace Camp surrendered to  the right-wing ideology, and dissolved.</p>
<p><strong>Passing the Torch to Sharon</strong></p>
<p>Barak having led his own voters to ideological bankruptcy, the  victory of the right-wing was all but predictable. Why should anyone  vote for the left, when even its leader says the right is right? Barak’s  nightmare, however, was not to lose the elections, but to be succeeded  by a non-militaristic prime minister like Netanyahu, who might have  shown some pragmatism and yielded to outside pressure to return to a  peace process, or at least put an end to the bloodshed. Barak therefore  resigned from his office as prime minister in a tricky timing and manner  that blocked Netanyahu’s way back to power, paving the way for the  expected land-slide victory of his &#8220;ideological opposite&#8221; (but in fact,  close friend and ideological mentor) Sharon in 2001, who could be  trusted to inflame the Intifada even further and stick to Israel’s  rejectionism. Barak in fact sacrificed his position in order to make  sure that the godfather of  Israeli colonialism returned to power, and  not Netanyahu, who had not been an army general and therefore could not  be trusted.</p>
<p>As long as Sharon was in power, Barak could sleep well: the danger of  ending the occupation was off the table. Indeed Barak used the bloody  years after his defeat to make money, exploiting his contacts with the  &#8220;security&#8221; business worldwide. It was then that the former (and future)  leader of Israel’s social-democratic party purchased and moved to a $2.5  million luxury apartment in Tel-Aviv, taken care of by an illegally  employed Philippine migrant worker.</p>
<p>In January 2006, however, Sharon slipped into coma. Ehud Olmert, not a  member of the militaristic junta, became prime minister. Barak must  have been alarmed, and returned almost immediately to the political  arena. It took him a year and a half to become Olmert’s defense  minister.</p>
<p><strong>Netanyahu’s Right Hand</strong></p>
<p>In the general elections of February 2009, Barak led Labor to an  unprecedented defeat. With just 13 seats in the Knesset, the party that  created the State of Israel and ruled it for three decades won less than  half the number of seats of Kadima or of the Likud, and even lagged  behind Lieberman’s party. Barak courageously took responsibility for his  historic defeat, and said he now would serve the nation from the  opposition.</p>
<p>He changed his mind the next day, of course, and started coalition  talks. Cards were still open, with Kadima’s Livni and Likud’s Netanyahu  both in a position to form the government – Livni with a  center-to-moderate-right-wing coalition, Netanyahu with a far-right one.  Again, the leader of Labor followed his political conviction. By  raising unreasonable demands and playing on time, he ensured Livni would  not be prime minister. He then ran into Netanyahu’s far-right coalition  as defense minister, to make sure his natural allies – the right-wing  prime minister and his fascist deputy Lieberman – do the (far) right  thing. Barak joined them in spite of severe opposition within his own  Labor party, which he ignored in his typically anti-democratic manner,  sowing the seeds for the present split.</p>
<p>Barak’s excuse for joining the far-right coalition was to balance  Lieberman and &#8220;pull Netanyahu to the left.&#8221; At this stage in Barak’s  career, one had to be extremely naïve or totally uninformed to trust his  alleged commitment to any peace process. Such extreme naivete and/or  total uninformedness were found – in Obama’s administration. It took the  American president, his secretary of state Clinton, and their advisors  almost two years to reach the conclusion which was obvious from the very  outset, namely that:</p>
<p><em>for more than a year and a half Barak misled them about his  persuasive powers with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the  peace process. […] &#8220;We put all our money on him a year and a half ago,&#8221;  the Israeli official quoted his U.S. colleague as saying. &#8220;The entire  administration bet on Barak because he said he could nudge Netanyahu  toward an agreement with the Palestinians, but he deceived us and led us  down the garden path.&#8221; […] &#8220;He charmed us with his intelligent  analyses; the president listened to Barak like a student with his  teacher and trusted him, but he didn’t meet any of his promises over the  peace process and the building freeze,&#8221; the official told the Israeli;  […] &#8220;in shock …. I almost burst into tears.&#8221;</em> (<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/u-s-officials-barak-deceived-us-about-his-role-in-peace-process-1.334697?trailingPath=2.169,2.225,2.226,"><em>Ha’aretz</em>, 2nd January 2011</a>)</p>
<p>Barak deceiving?! What a surprise. Indeed, even the U.S. official admitted that</p>
<p><em>Barak’s disappointing behavior evoked a sense of deja vu in  Washington, especially at the State Department, recalling his failures  as prime minister in the peace talks at Shepherdstown and Camp David.</em></p>
<p>Like the old joke about the benefit of dementia – you meet new people all the time.</p>
<p><strong>Open Defiance?</strong></p>
<p>The fact that Washington finally unmasked Barak as a man of war and  deceit, not as the man of peace he pretends to be, might be a central  reason for his political step. By leaving Labor, Barak boosted  Netanyahu’s coalition, which became smaller but stronger: Barak’s small  fraction is now personally loyal to its leader, who in turn is dependent  on Netanyahu, and is likely to join the Likud in future. Barak’s &#8220;new&#8221;  political line was made obvious in his departure speech, in which he  accused the remaining Labor party of &#8220;a drift to the left and even  farther left,&#8221; of &#8220;post-modernism&#8221; and &#8220;post-Zionism.&#8221; Obviously, Barak  is heading on to the far, far right.</p>
<p>This may be a sign of policy change. Unmasked by Washington, Barak  will no longer play the phony man-of-peace, but strengthen the  far-right/fascist government in its open defiance towards the US and the  rest of the international community. Netanyahu already used Barak’s  step to entrench even further in his rejectionism; he did this by  explaining that thanks to the moderate Labor ministers the Palestinians  stiffened their demands; now that those ministers were gone – they all  resigned after Barak left Labor – the Palestinians would be obliged to  soften their positions, and the peace process would be back on track,  Netanyahu predicted. Sure thing.</p>
<p>The unmasked Barak may now help Netanyahu and Lieberman to turn  Israel into a rogue state, which is openly defying the US, the UN, and  the international community. In the long run, this might be in the  benefit of Israelis and Palestinians alike. In the short run, it’s  likely to lead to a catastrophe. Not surprisingly, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/senior-official-israeli-attack-on-hezbollah-will-bring-war-with-syria-1.337655">predictions of a coming war</a> with Lebanon and Syria are already in the air.</p>
<h3>Read more by Ran HaCohen</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://original.antiwar.com/hacohen/2010/12/19/racism-rabbinical-and-otherwise/">Racism, Rabbinical and Otherwise</a> – December 19th, 2010</li>
<li><a href="http://original.antiwar.com/hacohen/2010/06/01/the-flotilla-in-the-israeli-press/">The Flotilla in the Israeli Press</a> – June 1st, 2010</li>
<li><a href="http://original.antiwar.com/hacohen/2010/05/09/from-two-states-to-one/">From Two States to One</a> – May 9th, 2010</li>
<li><a href="http://original.antiwar.com/hacohen/2010/04/09/israel-a-new-decade/">Israel, a New Decade</a> – April 9th, 2010</li>
<li><a href="http://original.antiwar.com/hacohen/2009/07/19/fascism-needs-an-enemy/">Fascism Needs an Enemy</a> – July 19th, 2009</li>
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<p><a href="http://original.antiwar.com/hacohen/2011/01/20/barak-unmasked/">Barak Unmasked by Ran HaCohen &#8212; Antiwar.com</a>.</p>
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