Peretz offers to bury hatchet with Barak

Labor approves changes to Knesset list; Peace Now head to seek a place.

By SHELLY PAZ
barak 224.88 ap (photo credit: )
barak 224.88 ap
(photo credit: )
Labor MK Amir Peretz extended an olive branch to party leader Ehud Barak, who dethroned him as party leader, on Thursday, offering to end their rivalry. "Our shared past is not glowing, but both of us are still sitting in the same room and the same party. I may have made a mistake and you may have made a mistake, but we are both still here and this [long-lasting rivalry] must end now and here. We have no more time," Peretz said in a speech to the party's central committee in Tel Aviv, as Barak listened. However, Peretz also criticized Barak, telling him that he had been given a vibrant party "on a silver platter." "You arrived in the middle of the term, received a party and 19 mandates and you did with it as you liked. Nobody stopped you; they all gave you their backing," Peretz said. Referring to Barak's speech scheduled for Saturday night at the gathering to mark the 13 anniversary of the assassination of prime minister and Labor leader Yitzhak Rabin, Peretz asked Barak to seize the moment and present voters with a comprehensive economic plan, and to outline ideas to reach a peace agreement. "Barak, let me advise you. On Saturday night in Kikar Rabin, you are going to make a speech. Please tell everyone that the Labor Party is the only party that leads the peace camp," Peretz said. Barak stood up and shook his hand. Prior to Peretz's remarks, Barak delivered a speech of his own. "I know I am not perfect. There are people who photograph better than me and better politicians than me, but the leader's test is the test of deeds, and I will do anything to succeed in this test," Barak said. "We are facing critical general elections after many years of a dead-end. Israel has no time to waste on playing word games, we bear a heavy responsibility," he said. The next elections would be determined by the path, the leadership and the team each party presented, Barak said. "Our goal is to head a winning center-left party, and we won't join a government whose fundamentals don't fit ours," he said. Outlining his plans for seeking peace deals with the Palestinians and the Syrians, Barak said: "Beyond the efforts to reach such agreements, we must strive for a regional arrangement that will promote economic, tourism and energy plans with the Arab world that will constitute a basis for a regional agreement down the road." He said Labor had clear socioeconomic answers, while the extreme capitalist agenda of Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu was bankrupt, and Kadima's confusion had been exposed when party leader Tzipi Livni faced [Shas's] financial and social demands during the negotiations she conducted in an attempt to form a coalition. "The Likud's path is the path of the extreme right-wing, and even if some of the Likud's newcomers are suitable people, politically they are detached from reality and they might drag us all to a confrontation with the Arab world, or even worse, to an all-out war in the region," Barak said. Kadima was "a mixture of Likud people and right-wingers," he said. "Kadima has nothing to do with the peace camp; this is a party based solely on atmosphere, and there is no way to tell how and where it would be at the moment of truth," Barak said. "The Likud doesn't want [to deliver] and Kadima can't [deliver]." Party members later approved the structure of the Labor Knesset candidates list, ahead of the December 2 primary. Party general-secretary MK Eitan Cabel announced that the sixth slot would be reserved for a representative of the party's chairman, a slot later secured by Barak for National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. Cabel added that the moshavim slot had been moved up from the 16th in the last elections to the 12th, and the kibbutzim slot from 17th to 13th. The place reserved for an Arab candidate was promoted to the 15th position from 19th and the one set aside for a representative of the Druse community was moved to 16th from 20th. The list's structure was approved despite earlier predictions of turmoil. However, prior to the vote, the Labor youth opposed the proposal and said it was undemocratic. Labor's representative in the South delivered an angry speech, saying that if it did not receive a realistic spot on the list, it would not turn out the vote and the volunteers. Peace Now Secretary-General Yariv Oppenheimer announced Thursday that he would run for a seat in the Labor faction in the party's upcoming primary. "I believe that the Labor Party must refresh its list and sharpen its image in Israel and its message, or it will lose the support of its voters," Oppenheimer said.