Ehud Barak, like the Titanic in 1913, gave this second act in his political career a magnificent send-off as he launched his new political party, Atzmaut (Independence). About the only thing it’s independent of is reality. But even Barak seemed to accept his consignment to oblivion come the next election, when he told the (literally) dozens of supporters who came to watch the spectacle:
Barak addressed the dozens of supporters who attended the event, saying he had “good news and bad news”. The defense minister said the “bad news is that we are doing terribly in the polls.”
But, finding a silver lining in the party’s lack of popularity, Barak said “the good news is that we can only go up from here”.
…”There are only 80 people in this room,” Barak said, “but this is only the beginning. If each one of you brings another 80, we can get 20 seats…
By my quick calculation that gets him 6,400 votes, which is barely enough for a single seat, let alone 20. Can you imagine a former Israeli prime minister and current defense minister declares the inauguration of a new political party and he can only draw 80 people? Let us all wave a fond farewell to Ehud Barak who has just consigned himself to political irrelevance and a much deserved rest.
But don’t worry about Ehud. He’ll resume his lucrative defense consulting business milking all those international companies which want to do business in Israel or with Israeli defense contractors. He’ll be opening doors like crazy or seeming to promise that he can.
According to a related post, the ship in the picture represents Labor, and Atzmaut is one of the boats, or perhaps a log with 4 rats on top of it.