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.”
