Yariv Oppenheimer, head of Peace Now, announced Thursday that he would seek a spot on the Labor party list in the upcoming elections. Oppenheimer expressed a desire to "rejuvenate" the party and bring back young voters.
Oppenheimer said that Labor's waning popularity is due to its loss of "peace camp" voters who hope to see all of Judea and Samaria become part of a Palestinian Authority-run independent state. He vowed to work to return those voters by offering "a consistent and ideological platform."
Peace Now promotes an immediate and complete Israeli retreat to the 1949 borders as well as negotiations with Syria and any terrorist group willing to recognize Israel. The group also opposes the assassination of terrorist masterminds.
Oppenheimer described his group as "a political NGO" that succeeds in influencing the public agenda. However, he added that he would now like to "influence from within" by joining the Knesset, which already includes Yuli Tamir of Labor, the Education Minister and one of Peace Now's founders.
Barak slams Kadima, Likud as Right-Wing
Meanwhile, Labor head Ehud Barak spoke at a conference at Tel Aviv University and slammed Likud for "right-wing extremism." Likud "will bring us into conflict with the free world and the entire region," he said. He implied that some Kadima MKs are in the same rightist camp, rhetorically asking, "What peace would [Kadima MKs] David Tal and [Otniel] Shneller bring us. What breakthrough would they give us?"
Labor's goal is to act as a "center-left" party that would increase the 2009 budget and give more money to social programs, Barak said. However, he did not explain how the outlays would be funded in the face of the current economic slowdown.
Barak spared no criticism of Kadima despite Labor's being part of the coalition government. "Ask yourselves what Kadima has done in the last three years and until today: the results of the Disengagement in Gaza, and everyone can judge their value to Israel, the Second Lebanon War, and everyone can judge its results...”
Critics have pointed out that then-Labor party head Amir Peretz led the Defense Ministry during the Second Lebanon War, and that a government commission has determined that Barak's sudden withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 was a contributing factor to the war.
The Labor party sat in Kadima's coalition for the past three years and was prepared to join Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni if she had succeeded in forming a new government.