Labor Party meeting gets ugly
Chaos breaks out at Labor Party meeting when former Knesset member Adissu Massala attacks Ehud Barak, accusing him of trying to turn Labor into 'his private shop'; Dalia Itzik gets hit in leg and cries; Massala and Amir Peretz ushered out of auditorium by guards
TEL AVIV - Labor Party secretary-general Eitan Cabel locked the public out of the party's headquarters during Sunday evening's debate on forged party membership forms after the central committee turned violent.
Following the lock-out, the committee voted on whether to delay the party primaries in order to allow officials to re-check the membership roll.
During the raucous meeting, Communications Minister Dalia Itzik was hit in the leg and started to cry. She was ushered out of the auditorium by security guards.
Peretz camp opens fire first
The Committee meeting, held under the banner "The moment of truth, Labor's great moment," started off calmly enough.
When Massala finished his speech, he was attacked by Barak supporters and had to be evacuated by security guards from the place. Amir Peretz, a candidate for Labor Party chairman, also had to be escorted out.
At the same time, those in the auditorium chanted "Ehud, Go Home!" and other anti-Barak slogans.
If that was not enough, sources in the Peretz camp said that rival candidate Barak smuggled non-party members into the Labor Party Central Committee meeting.
Before the bitter debate on the forged membership forms ended, Yigal Shapira, chairman of the Labor Party's election committee, criticized ex-judge Sarah Frisch for re-checking forms already declared invalid.
Shapira said it was unnecessary to check the forms and that "we are on a suicidal course."
Ben-Eliezer takes jab at Peres
Vice Premier Shimon Peres said, "I swear that every forgery will be thoroughly and mercilessly checked. Our party will be clean and pure. It won't be like the Likud."
In response to this declaration, Labor Party chairman candidate and Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer called on Peres to let Cabel do his work and "not to play games like he did in 1998. Either you support the secretary-general or you don't."
Labor Party general-secretary Cabel said that he plans to meet with all the candidates for chairman and discuss what had happened at the meeting.
"This madness must stop. I will not them tear apart the party. If they cannot rein in their supporters, someone will have to speak to them," he said.
