MK Daniel Ben-Simon
MK Daniel Ben-SimonIsrael news photo

A leader of the Labor Party’s youth wing welcomes MK Ben-Simon’s resignation as coalition whip, and says it could be the first step towards the forming of a breakaway party.

Ben-Simon [pronounced See-mone], a rookie Labor MK who left journalism to enter the Knesset, resigned this week as Labor’s Knesset coalition faction chairman. He thus wished to protest his party’s participation in a government that allows the continued presence of Jewish civilian outposts in Judea and Samaria.

Attorney Maayan Amudai, chairman of Labor’s Young Guard, told Arutz-7’s Hebrew newsmagazine that Ben-Simon’s move was overdue: “Better late than never, and we are happy that Ben-Simon finally understood. This [resignation] is apparently just another nail in the coffin of the Labor Party, and the time has come for this farce to end.”

“Today’s Labor Party has no connection whatsoever with the historic Labor Movement,” Amudai said. “We have here a sad situation of a glorious party that has come to the end of its way. We hope that [Ben-Simon’s decision] will promote the re-organization of the Labor Party.”

“I call upon the party to make an accounting of itself,” Ben-Simon said upon announcing his resignation. “This is a coalition of the extreme right, and the Labor Party contributes to its endurance. There are more outposts in Judea and Samaria today than there were before we entered this government. The party’s situation is critical, and the one who is responsible is its leader.” He did not mention party leader Defense Minister Ehud Barak by name.

Wanted: A Fifth MK

Four of the party’s 13 MKs have not hid their intention to split off from Labor, but they need a fifth one in order to represent at least a third of the parent party and thus receive Knesset recognition as a faction. The four party “rebels” are Yuli Tamir, Eitan Cabel, Amir Peretz, and Ophir Pines-Paz; Shelly Yechimovitch is sympathetic to their sentiments against Barak and his path, but she currently refuses to consider quitting. Ben-Simon could be the missing MK.

Attorney Amudai called on all those who “still support” Barak to think again: “I see no reason to remain there in the government. I say to them: If you want to again rule the country, you have to detach yourselves from this millstone. I call on Fuad [Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer], Barak and [Minister Shalom] Simchon: You have nothing to look for there, and [Ministers] Braverman and Herzog should also join the rebels.”

“I couldn’t care less about Netanyahu’s coalition,” Amudai continued. “What concerns me is that the Labor Party should not be there. If Ehud Barak needs to be Defense Minister, let him do what Moshe Dayan did, serving as Defense Minister on his own, without dragging the whole party along with him. All over the world it’s understood that a party leader who leads his party to defeat must quit.”

“Even those [within Labor] who voted for the party’s entry into the coalition now realize their great mistake. There are now large groups of people who want to establish a new platform so that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel – because there must be a new social-democratic alternative.”