Barak Decides Labor Will Stay in Olmert Government
(IsraelNN.com) Defense Minister and Labor Party Chairman Ehud Barak has decided to stay in the Olmert government, reneging on an campaign promise he made during primary elections last year.
Barak, who heads the second-largest party in the coalition, made the announcement Sunday morning, effectively sealing the security of the Olmert government.
Had Barak kept his vow to pull his 19-seat party out the coalition if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did not resign or call new elections after the release of the Winograd Report, the government would have collapsed. Olmert would have then been forced either to build a new coalition or call new elections.
The interim report of the Winograd Commission had released in April 2006 harshly criticized the prime minister, holding him personally responsible for the many errors in judgment and flawed decisions made by the government during the Second Lebanon War.
Then-Defense Minister and Labor Party head Amir Peretz also was severely criticized in the commission's interim report, as was former IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, who later resigned.
Peretz was ousted by his own party in primary elections for the chairmanship three months later. Ehud Barak was elected on the strength of his promise to pull out of the coalition if Olmert didn't step down following release of the report.
The release of the final Winograd Report largely skirted the issue of the prime minister's culpability in the failure of Israel to conclusively win the war against Hizbullah terrorists in Lebanon.
The members of the committee were hand-picked by Olmert, who thus avoided establishment of a state commission of inquiry to investigate the government's management of the war. A state commission would have been an independent entity that had the authority to subpoena witnesses and later use the testimony in subsequent court action.
PrintMK Edelstein: Barak Prefers Seat Over Responsibility
(IsraelNN.com) MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) said Sunday that Ehud Barak bears responsibility for creating the situation that led to the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Barak, a former IDF chief of staff, was the prime minister who ordered Israel's hasty retreat from the South Lebanon security zone in May, 2000.
"After all," said Edelstein, "the first kidnapping of IDF soldiers (by Lebanese terrorists) occurred while he (Barak) was prime minister. That incident left him completely dumbfounded; he failed even to fight Hizbullah. Now, he prefers to avoid taking responsibility in order to cling to his position, just like the rest of his colleagues in this government."
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