The Labor Central Committee voted Sunday evening to remain in government, despite a wave of opposition within the party against sitting in a coalition with Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu.

In a show of hands after a stormy convention, the party endorsed the stand of its leader, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, that it was better to stay in the government and influence policy than to wither away in the parliamentary
opposition.

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"We're talking about a man with a world view that is extreme, clear and infuriating," he said. "We will stay [in the government] in order not to let these views be realized."

Peretz had called on committee members to vote in favor of staying in the government in order to ensure advancing negotiations with Syria and other Arab states.

He said this would be the Labor's initiative "with or without [Lieberman]," adding it was up to Labor to "make the Syrian option a central option."

He called on the government to consider the Saudi peace plan according to which Israel would return to 1967 border and address the issue of Palestinian refugees, in return for full recognition from Arab states and normal diplomatic relations. He also said he was committed to continuing the policy of evacuating illegal West Bank outposts.

As the central committee convened to decide on the party's future role in the government, Culture and Sport Minister Ophir Pines told committee members that voting in favor of remaining in the government would mean "submitting to the edict of Lieberman."

He referred to Lieberman as the man who proposed "the expulsion of 90 percent of Israeli Arabs including those in Jaffa" and juding Israeli Arabs before the law "like in the Nuremberg trials."

Pines said he believed the Labor Central Committee could prevent Lieberman's inclusion in government by voting against remaining in the coalition with him, so that "Lieberman will be on the outside and the Labor Party and all of its components will be in the government."

"My home here has finished before my eyes because of a lack of faith," he said, adding that it was a "hallucinatory moment" to vote on Lieberman's inclusion on the anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, according to the Hebrew calendar.

Opponents to the inclusion of Yisrael Beiteinu in the government coalition had threatened to disrupt the proceedings of the meeting unless their demand for a secret ballot is met.

Even though it appeared that the central committee would authorize the request of Peretz, and most of the Labor ministers (except Pines) to approve the inclusion of Yisrael Beiteinu in the coalition, opponents of the move maintained that a secret ballot would have proven otherwise.