Barak: I'm staying in Labor

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak announced Thursday he plans to remain in the Labor party, following a meeting with party chairman Amir Peretz.

"Shimon Peres has left Labor, but I am staying," Barak said.

Barak-Peretz meeting Thursday (Photo: Reuters)  

However, Barak's associates said "The meeting ended without concrete results, and the conflict between Barak and Peretz still stands."

According to a source close to Barak, the former prime minister feels that Peretz is not genuinely willing to include him in the political process the Labor party is currently undergoing, and therefore Barak has been placed in a position where he needs to decide on his future political path.

Barak said he expects Peretz to

change his attitude toward him, if he is to remain in the party.

Meanwhile, Vice Premier and outgoing Labor member Shimon Peres met Thursday with Knesset member Raleb Majadele (Labor) in Tel Aviv, in order to persuade him to quit the faction and join Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new Kadima party.

Political sources estimate this move aims at enlisting the support of the Arab constituency in Kadima.

Peres under attack

Responses to Peres' announcement of his

resignation from Labor Wednesday have spurred strong reactions from within the stormy political arena.

Labor member and former minister Ophir Paz-Pines said that "fabricated ideological stories of Shimon Peres are embarrassing and fake."

"There's no doubt that no one will buy them. The Labor party is committed to peace more than every other party, and Peres' attempt to excuse his abandonment by talking about peace is pathetic," he said.

"It's too bad, because Peres did so much for the State, but he'll be remembered as someone who abandoned the home which he led for dozens of years for a party based on personal career interests. No one knows where it came from and where it is going." he added.

Slamming Peres' resignation from the other side of the political spectrum, the Likud released a statement (which seemed not to take account of the fact that Peres did not in fact join Kadima), in which it said "Peres joining Kadima after Haim Ramon and Dalia Itzik is clear proof that Kadima is a Left-wing party, that will take us down the Oslo path."

Meretz-Yahad Chairman Yossi Belin welcomed Peres' exit from Labor, saying "Peres left the theoretical supermarket known as the Labor party, and rightly so."

However, Beilin added that "Peres made a serious mistake when he joined Sharon's supermarket, which only offers products past their sell-by dates."