Liberals grow spine in Israel

This needed to happen:

Efforts to smooth over the tensions between Mitzna and senior Labor MKs collapsed during the second meeting in two days, after the Labor leader repeated his claim that the party's election defeat was largely due to the fact that Labor had spent two years in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's first government.

...

It was then Mitzna's turn to summarize the meeting. He began by thanking his colleagues for their advice on how the faction should act, but added "it's a shame that you are not doing 10 percent of the things you say and it's a shame that you didn't do this in the past." The Labor MKs were shocked to hear this confrontational message from Mitzna, but this was not all the party chairman had to say. Mitzna explained that he also wants to see a spirit of cooperation in the party, but that this will not stop him from saying what he thinks. "And, yes, our participation in the previous unity government is truly one of the main reasons for the debacle," he said.



All eyes turned to Ben-Eliezer, who slowly stood up and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

What's going on here, is that after Sharon became Prime Minister, Peres and Ben-Elezier became "fig leafs" - the Labor party joined Sharon's givernment and essentially became mute. Sharon's continual perpetration of the cycle of violence went unchallenged. Mitzna is right to continually bring up the increased number of Israeili lives lost during Sharon's tenure, because Sharon has been a disaster for Israeili security, and the Labor leaders were complicit by their silence.



In Israel, Mitzna is the face of the new liberal, loyal opposition. The one with a spine.



(just like Howard Dean... a new era dawns...)