Word: barak
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...stormy meeting of Israel's Labor Party on Tuesday night, Ehud Barak pushed his party into joining a right-wing coalition government led by Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu. With Labor on board, Netanyahu's coalition, stitched together with an array of ultra-Orthodox and nationalist parties, now has a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. The hawkish Likud leader is likely to be sworn in as Prime Minister next week, ushering out his disgraced predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who faces possible corruption charges...
...Having Barak, currently Defense Minister, at his side will give Netanyahu a veneer of international respectability. The Obama Administration and European capitals are horrified that the other members of Netanyahu's coalition oppose the idea of Palestinian statehood. (See pictures of heartbreak in the Middle East...
...Convincing Laborites to join ranks with their longtime ideological rivals on the right was a tough sell for Barak. During his speech at the party convention in Tel Aviv, Barak's voice sounded squeaky and defensive. He called for "national responsibility," but this was dismissed by booing younger cadres as rank opportunism - Barak wanting to hang on to his berth as Defense Minister at the expense of his party's ideals and character. As Labor secretary Eitan Cabel told TIME, "The ambitions of Barak are killing the Labor Party, and I told him that...
...Labor's rising stars: "A strong motive was clinging to power and the good life. Some Labor people believe their genetic code cannot survive outside the government." Labor's younger cadres squawked "like slaughtered chickens," according to Haaretz columnist Yossi Sarid. In the end, though, Barak got his mandate to join Netanyahu, with 680 delegate votes to 507. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel...
...lost the vote, Barak, the diminutive ex-general and decorated war hero, would likely have been driven out as party leader, his political career at an end. This way Barak stays in power, and Labor will get the ministries of defense, agriculture, industry, trade and welfare. But the cost has been high. One respected columnist, Ben Caspit in Maariv, wrote, "The Labor Party signed its own death certificate...