Israeli 'dove' set to lead Labour party

A former Israeli general who says that, if elected Prime Minister, he would go back to the negotiating table with Yasser Arafat looks almost certain to become leader of the opposition Labour Party in elections today. If he wins the vote, Amram Mitzna will lead Labour into January's national elections on a radical peace agenda.

Mr Mitzna, 57, the mayor of Haifa, has been critical of the hardline military policy of Ariel Sharon's government. He says Israel cannot achieve peace through military might alone, and must enter negotiations with the Palestinians.

At a time when the United States under George Bush is refusing to speak to Mr Arafat, Mr Mitzna says he would. He also says he would be prepared to evacuate most Jewish settlements in the West Bank and all settlements in Gaza.

According to opinion polls yesterday, Mr Mitzna will win the Labour leadership easily. A poll for the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper gave him 52 per cent backing among Labour members, with only 29 per cent supporting the current leader, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.

But that is where the good news ends for Mr Mitzna. Because, according to the polls, he hasn't got a chance of getting into power. Mr Sharon's Likud Party looks set to win the national elections in January and, if he wins today, Mr Mitzna is likely to become the leader of the opposition in Israel.

The only question is whether the Prime Minister he will be opposing will be Mr Sharon or his rival, Benjamin Netanyahu. That will be decided in Likud elections later this month.

Mr Mitzna and Mr Sharon have a history of confrontation. In 1982, Mr Mitzna, who was a senior officer in the Israeli army, publicly attacked Mr Sharon, who was Defence Minister, over the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps in Beirut by Israel's Lebanese allies. The Israeli army did nothing to stop them. An Israeli public inquiry later blamed Mr Sharon. Mr Mitzna asked to be allowed to take leave until Mr Sharon resigned, to the fury of the Defence Minister.

Mr Mitzna's credentials are impeccable. One of the country's most decorated veterans, he was wounded in the 1967 Six-Day War, and lost a kneecap in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. His parents fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and moved to what was then the British mandated territory of Palestine, where there was already a Zionist movement pledged to create a Jewish state. Mr Mitzna was born on a kibbutz in 1945, three years before the creation of modern Israel.

He is campaigning on proposals that are radical in Israel. He has said that if elected Prime Minister he would name a time-limit for negotiations with the Palestinians to succeed. If they failed, he says, he would order a "unilateral separation" – an Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip.

"We are insisting on sitting in the heart of an Arab population that will never like us and will always want to get out from under us," he has said.

But his peace credentials are not unambiguous. For one thing he supports construction of a "security fence" around the West Bank that will separate thousands of Palestinian farmers from their land, their only source of income. Mr Mitzna has said he is not sure about the current route of the fence.

He was the commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank during the first intifada, and presided over brutal Israeli repression that included the demolition of civilians' homes.

In that there is an uncanny parallel to Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli premier who signed the Oslo peace accords and was assassinated by an extreme right-wing Israeli. He too presided over harsh repression only to decide that peace talks were the only option. But Mr Mitzna's military past has also made many Israelis draw comparisons with Ehud Barak, the unpopular former Labour premier during the collapse of the Camp David talks, that are not comfortable for Mr Mitzna.

Although Mr Mitzna is unlikely to become Prime Minister any time soon, his election as Labour leader today would see the party return to a more leftist agenda and to a more pro-peace stance.

Under Mr Ben-Eliezer, the party shifted to the right as he led Labour into coalition with Mr Sharon. Mr Ben-Eliezer served as Defence Minister during the controversial reoccupation of Israeli cities, including Jenin, in April.

National elections are being held in January because the government collapsed after Mr Ben-Eliezer led Labour out of the coalition in what Israelis believe was an attempt to secure his hold on the Labour leadership – a gambit that now seems likely to fail. Mr Mitzna has said he would not join a new coalition with Likud.