Israel As A "Mansion In The Jungle"

UMD's Israel Studies Director Yoram Peri weighs in on Israel's Ehud Barak and his recent decisions.

UMD's Israel Studies Director Yoram Peri weighs in on Israel's Ehud Barak and his recent decisions.
By Yoram Peri, The Huffington Post

This week, Israel's Labor Party chairman Ehud Barak left the party along with four of his Knesset colleagues to form a small new party that immediately joined Prime Minister Netanyahu's ruling coalition. This move was seen as another tactical maneuver in the Byzantine world of Israeli coalition politics.
 But this is a too narrow interpretation. Barak's step, coordinated with Prime Minister Netanyahu, was taken to dampen the possibility of conflict in the Middle East but is more likely to bring war closer.
 The theory adopted by most Israeli commentators for Barak's move is that he took this step as an act of political survival. Barak long ago lost political support from within his own party, who within three months his party would have left the coalition and voted him out as leader. Instead, just like the leader of an elite commando unit he once was, he launched a preemptive strike. This way he prevented this ouster and cemented his position as Defense Minister in the current government and the next one should Netanyahu be reelected in less than two years.

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