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Netanyahu, Barak locked in dirtiest fight yet

The upcoming Israeli elections are already reminiscent of 1999, when Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu first exchanged vitriolic rhetoric and outrageous accusations.
Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak waves to the crowd as he arrives to his election victory rally May 23. Barak won a landslide victory over encumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in last week's general election and now begins forming a government which he has said should be broad-based and include all aspects of Israeli society.

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The bottom of the barrel was struck on July 18, when an unidentified right-wing supporter tweeted that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who is running in the Sept. 17 Knesset elections, had a daughter out of wedlock in 1987, when he was serving as a senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces. Yair Netanyahu, son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was among the 40 re-tweeters.

The fact that an “inciting prostitute-user who receives protection, lives a parasitic lifestyle and gets tight Shin Bet security" is a "disgrace,” the former IDF chief said at a launch event the same day for his new Israel Democratic Party. The festive launch turned into brawl between Barak and his former junior officer, a battle in which both are exposing their dark sides. For both of them, it is a struggle for political survival. Barak is performing poorly in the polls, which indicate his new party may not receive sufficient votes to get into the Knesset, and is fighting for legitimacy in the face of publications insinuating that he had nefarious contacts with accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Netanyahu is also fighting for political survival, but his situation is worse given the three criminal indictments hanging over his head.

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