Defense Minister and Labor party head Ehud Barak said Sunday that despite the appointment of Labor MK Ami Ayalon as the government’s 26th minister, the Labor party plans to leave the coalition. The party will leave the coalition ahead of the Winograd Committee’s report on political and military failures from the Second Lebanon War, Barak said. The report is expected to be released in early 2008.
Despite Barak’s insistence that Ayalon’s appointment will not extend Labor’s stay in the government, members of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima party expressed hope that Ayalon would strengthen Olmert. According to Kadima MK Menachem Ben-Sasson, Ayalon’s appointment shows that Labor desires a “permanent presence” in the government in order to “join in the reshaping of the Middle East.”