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March 2, 2001/Adar 7, 5761, Vol. 53, No.22
Parties in disarray after election
DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - The public bloodletting that the Labor Party presented to the Israeli public last week has exposed the depth of disarray and confusion on the Israeli left following Prime Minister Ehud Barak's massive defeat at the polls.
Labor's Central Committee ultimately voted by a 2-1 margin Feb. 26 to join Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon's proposed national unity government.
But the margin masks the magnitude of division within Labor about the proper course of action for a party that, until the outbreak of the "Al-Aqsa Intifada" five months ago, was convinced that its path as the standard-bearer of Israel's peace camp was the correct one.
Farther to the left, the Meretz Party also is in disarray.
Meretz Party head Yossi Sarid is facing criticism for his support of Barak during the election campaign, and some in the party even have recommended that Meretz join Sharon - if only he can be convinced to jettison the far right from his proposed government.
Much as the septuagenarian Sharon stepped in to resuscitate the ailing Likud after Benjamin Netanyahu's defeat in 1999, it was left to party elder Shimon Peres, 78, to swing Laborites to his vision of the party's role.
In arguing passionately for a unity government, Peres faced down Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and Knesset faction chair Ofir Pines-Paz, all of whom argued that Labor was in effect selling its soul to join Sharon.
Peres castigated the doves for being "out of touch" with the people and assured the party that the great majority of the public wants a unity government.
Labor would emerge streng-thened from a period in the unity government, Peres argued; in opposition, it would do little but make speeches during a period of national crisis.
Beilin, Peres' political protege and one of the main opponents of a unity government, said Labor's only purpose would be to extend the life of an ill-fated coalition under Sharon.
Yet what the opponents of unity didn't say at the Feb. 26 meeting was as telling as what they did.
More important than the abuse and recrimination hurled around the hall was the fact that the losers in the struggle made no threat to split the party.
There even are a few voices in Meretz that favor joining Sharon's unity coalition, if the prime minister-elect agrees to leave out the far-right party.
To some on the left, these currents in Labor and Meretz reflect how severely the Israeli peace camp has lost its sense of confidence - and, some would say, its direction.
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