Barak talks of a return

FORMER Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who almost reached a peace deal with Yasser Arafat, announced yesterday he will seek the leadership of the opposition Labour Party.

Senior party officials criticised the former general’s political comeback bid, saying Barak had made many mistakes in his short term, which lasted from 1999-2001.

Barak’s announcement came at a time when early elections are becoming more likely. The next vote is set for 2006, but Prime Minister Ariel Sharon lost his parliamentary majority earlier this year when ultra-nationalist members of his coalition fought his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip next year.

Admitting mistakes, Barak said he expected elections next summer. “I am acting with a sense of responsibility for the state of Israel. “We have to get Israel back on the right track.”

The Labour Party is slated at the end of the month to decide when it will hold internal elections for party leader. Shimon Peres, Israel’s elder statesman and the current party leader, hopes to lead Labour into Sharon’s government as a key backer of his plan to evacuate Gaza.

A senior Labour official, Ephraim Sneh, said the party was still recovering from Barak’s “colossal failures” as prime minister. “I think this is an arrogant, impudent and immoral act,” Sneh said. “For four years he didn’t do anything, not for the country, not for the society and not for the party.”

Barak is best known for his failed bid to work out a final peace agreement with the Palestinians in a mid-east peace summit in 2000 with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and then US President Bill Clinton.

Barak lost to Sharon in the 2001 elections, several months after the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.