With the 20/20 hindsight of a Monday-morning quarterback, Labor Party officials have been holding a series of consultation in an effort to determine the factors that led to Prime Minister Shimon Peres’ defeat last week.
In the days since Peres lost by a hairbreadth to Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, mutual recriminations have already been traded by Haim Ramon, who headed the media campaign for the Labor Party in the Knesset elections, and Ehud Barak, who led Peres’ campaign in the separate race for prime minister.
On Monday, the secularist Meretz Party, Labor’s coalition partner in the outgoing government, was added to the list of those to blame for Peres’ loss.
Labor ministers said the left-wing party’s campaign of intolerance toward religious Israelis, as well as what they said was Meretz’ condescending attitude toward most of the Israeli public, hurt the Labor Party by association.
Meretz leader Yossi Sarid responded that the Labor Party was ready to blame everyone but itself for Peres’ loss.
Meanwhile, Labor ministers said Peres had issued a directive against initiating any contacts with Likud to discuss forming a national unity government.
Peres had indicated that Likud should initiate any such discussions.
But sources within Labor said Peres was personally opposed to the idea.
With six potential coalition partners – including Shas, the National Religious Party, United Torah Judaism, Yisraei Ba’Aliyah, the Third Way and Moledet – Likud officials do not appear to be considering the option of a unity government.
They said this week that Netanyahu hoped to present his government when the Knesset opens June 17.
By law, the new leader has 45 days to form a government.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
