Last update - 00:00 08/01/2008
Reservists, bereaved parents urge Barak to leave government
By Mazal Mualem and Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondents
Defense Minister and Labor Party Chairman Ehud Barak got his baptism by fire Monday when army reservists and the Forum of Bereaved Parents urged him to fulfill his pledge to resign from Ehud Olmert's government after the publication of the final Winograd Report.
The group came to the Knesset and visited MKs from parties including Likud, Meretz and Shas, but the meeting with Labor was the most charged.
The group asked Barak to come through on his pledge and bring down the Olmert government, but Barak said he will decide what to do only after the final report is released. The interim report came out last spring.
"There is no place in a democratic country, not even for reservists, to tell the leaders of the country what is right for the country before they have seen the report," Barak said. He added that when the report was released he would "read it and act based on what is good for the State of Israel."
A reservist in the Israel Defense Forces interrupted Barak, calling out that "promises must be kept." Labor faction head MK Eitan Cabel threatened to have the man ejected from the meeting.
Ministers Shalom Simhon and Benjamin Ben-Eliezer tried to defend Barak, as part of Labor's tactic to deflect criticism from Barak to the prime minister.
Barak tried to keep his cool, even when bereaved parents approached him and whispered in his ear that they hoped he would keep his promise.
A bereaved mother, Elisheva Zemach, came up to Barak holding a picture of her son, Oz, who was killed in the final days of the war. "Rabin knew how to take responsibility even for his wife's $2,000," she said, referring to Rabin's resignation from office decades ago when Leah Rabin was found to have held an illegal foreign currency account abroad.
Barak embraced the parents a number of times, but said nothing to them beyond his statements to the press.
When the reservists and the bereaved parents visited the Likud faction, its lawmakers allowed them free reign in describing to the cameras the details of their fight and their personal stories.
Netanyahu's associates did not deny that he was cooperating with the reservists, as reported Monday in Yedioth Ahronoth. The group asked Likud to help bring down the government.
A reservist leader, Yakir Segev, said that Barak should "concentrate on doing what he promised and work to replace Prime Minister Olmert, and attack the reservists less."
Segev said that after the final Winograd Report on January 30 there will be widespread protests calling for Olmert to resign.
Tafnit, a movement headed by Major General (res.) Uzi Dayan is also supporting the call of the reservists and the bereaved families, as are residents of the beleaguered town of Sderot near Gaza.
The latter group has not yet decided what form their protest will take, and are considering a rally at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. A number of the protests are expected to be directed against Barak, demanding that he work to oust Olmert.