Labor activists to push Ben-Eliezer to lead party

The activists want to initiate a process of toppling current chairman Ehud Barak and advancing the next Labor leadership primary.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Top Labor activists will try to persuade Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben- Eliezer to take the reins of the Labor Party at a rally for his supporters that he will host at Tel Aviv’s Eretz Israel Museum on Wednesday night.
The activists want to initiate a process of toppling current chairman Ehud Barak and advancing the next Labor leadership primary, which is currently set for October 2012.
They hope that Ben-Eliezer, 74, would agree to serve as temporary party chairman ahead of the race while Barak remains minister of defense.
“Barak is a malignant tumor on Labor that is killing the party,” said party activist Dani Cohen, who has been a fierce critic of Barak for many years.
“Barak will be remembered for running the party into the toilet.
We must get rid of him before he destroys the party and put in a temporary chairman who can get the party ready for the race.”
Ben-Eliezer’s spokesman said he was not interested in leading the party, which he headed from 2001 to 2002. But Cohen said he would keep trying to convince Ben-Eliezer, saying he “has a historical obligation to rehabilitate the party.”