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Israeli Labor Party Plots Comeback

Veteran Labor members are planning to replace party chair Shelly Yachimovich with popular former Israeli chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi.
Israel's army chief Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi takes a seat before testifying at a state-appointed inquiry into the Israeli naval raid on a Gaza aid flotilla, in Jerusalem, August 11, 2010. Ashkenazi acknowledged on Wednesday that his troops were not ready for the violent resistance encountered when they boarded the Gaza-bound aid ship and ended up killing nine pro-Palestinian activists. REUTERS/Gali Tibbon/Pool (JERUSALEM - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST MILITARY) - RTR2H8JS
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Last week, two heads of Labor party local branches approached an associate of former IDF chief-of-staff Lt. Gen. (Res.) Gabi Ashkenazi. They asked him to arrange a meeting for them with Ashkenazi to talk him into running for the chairmanship of the Labor Party. The associate, who has been getting similar requests every week since the January elections, told them the time was not yet ripe, but gave them to understand that there was room for discussion, that Ashkenazi had not abandoned his dream of becoming prime minister.

Ashkenazi has not yet met with the heads of the Labor Party’s branches, but he maintains friendly, ongoing ties with two of the most senior party leaders; former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, and the chairman of the general federation of trade unions ('Histadrut'), Ofer Eini. When the time is right, they are the ones who will lead his camp. In recent, behind-the-scenes discussions, these two have been saying that Ashkenazi would easily beat anyone who runs against him and that he’s the one who can carry the Labor party to the premiership. This hasn’t happened since former Defense Minister Ehud Barak was elected prime minister in 1999 at the head of the Labor Party.

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