Barak has brought about a more extremist, right-wing government

[azurnoir]

Labor Party chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak stunned Israeli politics yesterday by announcing that he and four other MKs were leaving Labor to set up a new party, Atzmaut.

Twenty-two months of incessant, bitter fighting among Labor's 13 MKs over Barak's decision to join the Netanyahu government finally ended in divorce - but not necessarily the one everyone had expected.

Barak and his followers - Shalom Simhon, Matan Vilnai, Orit Noked and Einat Wilf - swore allegiance to the government and received a fistful of jobs. Labor's three other ministers, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, Isaac Herzog and Avishay Braverman, were forced to resign, and must now either keep feuding with Labor's other five MKs or arrange another divorce.

The Labor Party's future looked gloomy last night, but it wasn't too bright before the split, either. After going through seven leaders and losing dozens of Knesset seats over the last two decades, it has reached the moment of truth. The coming weeks will show whether it is at the end of the road or still has something to contribute to Israeli politics.

The maneuver Barak pulled on his colleagues yesterday was brilliant, but also filthy - the kind of maneuver that makes people loathe politics. He compared himself to David Ben-Gurion, Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon, all of whom abandoned their parties, but in truth, the differences outweigh the similaritie

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/barak-has-brought-about-a-more-extremist-right-wing-government-1.337690

[bemildred]

1. Barak is all about Barak. nt