Word: labors
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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...
...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 was the party of Israel's socialist founders, and at the convention there were glimpses of the old stalwarts: sun-creased kibbutzniks, leather-capped union men, teachers and a few men and women of dogged ideals. But they were outnumbered by party apparatchiks, with their cologne and insipid handshakes, few of whom appeared ready to give up their cushy government posts and influence. Says Shelly Yachimovich, a hard-hitting ex-radio journalist who is now one of Labor's rising stars: "A strong motive was clinging to power and the good life. Some Labor people believe their genetic code...
...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...
...Netanyahu has finally pieced together a majority of at least 66 Knesset seats. But there are no guarantees that his coalition will last its four-year term. Members of his own Likud Party are grumbling that Netanyahu has given away too many ministerial portfolios to woo both Labor and the hard-right party Yisrael Beitenu of Avigdor Lieberman, who is likely to become the next Foreign Minister, despite his extreme anti-Arab views. (See a TIME video on Lieberman...