MK Ami Ayalon (Labor) announced Saturday that he has decided to stop cooperating with Meimad, the liberal-religious faction headed by MK Rabbi Michael Melchior. The announcement came less than four weeks after Ayalon and Melchior announced that Ayalon would be heading the faction, despite the fact that he is not religiously observant. That announcement was greeted with some shock among both Meimad supporters and Ayalon supporters, who did not understand what the two had in common, politically and ideologically.

Now that the short-lived union with Meimad is over too, observers say that Ayalon's political career is nearing a less-than spectacular end. His confidantes are quoted as saying he may leave politics and he reportedly told a group of supporters that he will not be running for the 18th Knesset.

Ayalon, who had been a Minister without Portfolio for Labor, is set to resign Sunday after Labor f

"If Ehud Barak needs the portfolio, Minister Ayalon will give it up and hand in his resignation."

action whip Eitan Cabel called upon him to do so since he was quitting the party which he had represented in the government. "Since the country was established," Ayalon's staff said, "it has been accepted practice that a transition government continues to function until elections are held in order to preserve stability. However, if Ehud Barak needs the portfolio, Minister Ayalon will give it up and hand in his resignation from the government."

Left All Ayalon

Meimad, which is not doing well in public opinion polls, officially ratified the cooperation with Ayalon last month. The idea was that the former navy admiral would head the list and that additional movements would join the ticket. However, no other movement expressed interest in joining.

Ayalon was a decorated soldier and served as commander-in-chief of the Navy. Following Yitzhak Rabin's assassination in 1995, Ayalon was appointed head of the Shin Bet or Israel Security Agency. He retired in 2000.

He came in second to Ehud Barak in a Labor party leadership election in June 2007, and was appointed a Minister without Portfolio in September 2007.

On 14 November 2003, Ayalon with three other former heads of the Israeli Security Agency (ISA), Avraham Shalom, Yaakov Peri and Carmi Gillon gave an interview to Yedioth Ahronoth in which they urged the public to support the creation of a state called Palestine next to Israel.