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Ehud Barak seizes the microphone from Moshe Shahal.
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners December 1, 2004 |
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What possessed Ehud Barak, a former prime minister known for his cool reserve, to storm the stage of a Labor Party convention, grab a microphone from a shocked colleague and shout in a hoarse voice that the party is being stolen from him?
Israelis are used to emotion-packed politics, but were stunned Wednesday by the outburst of the former army commando who has been trying to stage a political comeback. Newspapers ran frontpage pictures of Barak, his face contorted in fury, pulling the mike with both hands from a staid, gray-haired party lawyer. "The war over the microphone," read a headline in the Maariv daily.
Barak apparently underestimated the wall-to-wall hostility toward him in Labor. The party blames him for its misfortunes since he left politics in 2001, after a tumultuous 19-month stint as prime minister. Since then, Barak has spent time abroad, including on the U.S. lecture circuit.
"For the past 3 1/2 years, we have tried to rise from the ruins to which Barak sent us," Haim Ramon, a senior Labor member, said bitterly. "He hasn't learned a thing."
Analysts said Barak's comeback appears over before it even started.
"The nerves of this cool-tempered man, who infiltrated the camp of Lebanese terrorists as a woman, didn't withstand his attempt to infiltrate the camp of his own party," commentator Sima Kadmon, referring to Barak's military past, wrote Wednesday on the front page of the Yediot Ahronot daily.
The tumultuous Labor meeting Tuesday evening exposed an increasingly bitter leadership battle between Barak and veteran party chief Shimon Peres, also a former prime minister.
The showdown comes at a time when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon needs Labor for his political survival. Sharon presides over a minority coalition and wants Labor to join, mainly to help him push through the planned Gaza withdrawal in 2005.
The argument at Tuesday's Labor meeting erupted over an ostensibly procedural issue -- how to decide the date for a party primary.
Peres and his supporters are in no hurry, apparently hoping to buy time for Peres to negotiate a coalition agreement with Sharon. Barak was pushing for a decision Tuesday on setting a primary date.
When Labor lawyer Moshe Shahal stood on stage in the crowded auditorium explaining procedural issues, Barak snapped.
He rushed onstage, grabbed the microphone from Shahal and yelled hoarsely that a secret ballot must be held: "Anything else is an attempt to steal the party, and we will not let this happen in the year 2004, period."
Shahal demanded an apology, saying Barak had turned the gathering of the normally staid Labor Party into something akin to a Likud convention -- a cutting reference to Sharon's hardline party, known for its lively political theater.
Barak defended his behavior Wednesday as the only way to fight Peres' effort to dictate party decisions. "I am not happy about the way I was forced to act," Barak told Israel Radio. "But I was forced to do so because I want the party to have a real democracy."
Peres, a prominent Labor figure for half a century, said he was "simply ashamed" by Barak's behavior.
Barak took office with high hopes, and withdrew Israeli troops from Lebanon by May 2000. However, he failed to reach promised peace deals with the Palestinians and Syria.
During his term, Barak was often criticized as aloof and unfeeling.
Barak has been trying to show a more emotional side, and the outburst might actually have helped him, commentator Ben Caspit wrote in the Maariv daily. "The public could still interpret this behavior as proof that this man is a human being, after all."
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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