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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Barak Splits With Labor, Stays In Government |
| 2011-01-17 |
| Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak broke away from his center-left Labor Party on Monday in a move Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said made his government stronger and more stable. Barak will remain as defense chief in the right-leaning government, while the three remaining Labor ministers quit the cabinet, bringing the once-dominant political party that pioneered peace efforts with the Palestinians into opposition. The split removes the risk that a left-wing rival could have replaced Barak as Labor leader and pulled the whole party out of the ruling coalition, possibly bringing the government down. The split could further marginalize Labor, which dominated Israel for most of its history but saw its support erode in the past decade with the failure of the peace process pioneered in the 1990s under Labor leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. Barak served as Labor's last prime minister from 1999-2001, but was voted out after failing to finalize a peace deal with the Palestinians. His decision to join Netanyahu's right-wing government had alienated many core Labor supporters. At a news conference announcing he and four of Labor's 13 legislators would form a new Atzmaut (Independence) faction, Barak said he had faced a "never-ending fight" watching Labor's "continuous drift to the left and again to the left." |
| Posted by: Anonymoose |