my own," Ben-Eliezer says proudly. "I am a totally
self-made man."
Drafted into the army in 1954, Ben-Eliezer rose
though the ranks to become commander of an elite
commando unit, military governor and coordinator
of government activities in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip and commander in southern Lebanon.
Because of Ben-Eliezer's experience with the
Palestinians and his fluency in Arabic, Rabin sent
responsible for the West Bank. His decision two years
later to take a temporary leave from the army to study him on a secret mission to Tunis in 1993 to test
whether Arafat was ready for reconciliation with
at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government was
Israel. Ben-Eliezer came back saying that he was.
seen by then-Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin as tan-
Ben-Eliezer started his political career in the early
tamount to defection in the midst of battle.
1980s in the ethnic Sephardi Tami Party, soon mov-
Within a year of leaving the army in 1993, Mitzna
ing to his friend Ezer Weizman's centrist Yahad, and
was elected mayor of Haifa, Israel's third largest city.
only joining Labor with Weizrnan in the mid-1980s.
He presents his tenure in Haifa as a model for the
By 1992, Ben-Eliezer was in charge of Labor's
country as a whole: Under his leadership, the city has
membership
drive, which he used to build a formi-
absorbed 70,000 new immigrants, its
dable
power
base.
Last year, he defeated Knesset
350,000 Jewish and 70,000 Arab residents
Speaker Avraham Burg for the party leadership.
live in relative harmony and, despite the
His opponents charge that as defense minister in
national economic slowdown, its develop-
Sharon's unity government, Ben-Eliezer merely carried
ment has been unprecedented.
out the prime minister's policies and never tried
Much of Mitzna's attraction for Labor voters
to present an alternative Labor Party peace plan.
stems from his quiet personality and his pro-
"Sharon was the chef, and Ben-Fliezer merely
fessed dedication to a new, cleaner style of pol-
the
cook's helper," Ramon says.
itics. Yet on the key political and socioeco-
Ramon, 52, by far the most forceful ora-
nomic issues facing Israel, all three candidates
tor of the three, was born into a poor
have similar positions: A readiness to talk with
Eastern European family in Jaffa and
the Palestinians and, if that proves impossible,
entered politics in the Labor Party's youth
to withdraw unilaterally from most of the
wing
before qualifying as a lawyer.
Amram
West Bank to more defensible lines; on the
Mitzna
economy, less spending on Jewish settlements
Young Leaders
in the West Bank and more on retirees, stu-
A Knesset member at age 33, Ramon was
dents and poor development towns.
soon identified as one the party's young stars.
There are nuanced differences in their
A group of eight young Knesset members,
approaches to the Palestinians, however.
including Burg and Yossi Beilin, coalesced
Mitzna would be willing to negotiate with
around the charismatic Ramon, who was
any Palestinian leader, including Palestinian
marked as the heir apparent to Labor's leader-
Authority leader Yasser Arafat; Ben-Eliezer
ship
after the Rabin-Peres era.
was one of the first Labor politicians to say
Haim Ramon
But Ramon made a series of bold political
that Arafat had exhausted his role as
moves that cost him dearly in the party. He
Palestinian leader and should be bypassed;
– formed a list of his own to win control of the
and Ramon doesn't believe any Palestinian
Histadrut Trade Union from Labor, and pro-
leader, even a new one, would be willing
ceeded to sell off the bloated federation's
right now to make peace with Israel.
–
assets.
Labor stalwarts accused Ramon of
Mitzna's most obvious weak point is his
destroying
one of the party's most important
inexperience in national politics, which
power bases. As health minister, Ramon also
both Ben-Eliezer and Ramon have been
drafted an unpopular health bill and, in
remorselessly targeting. Ben-Eliezer snaps
1996, ineptly ran Shimon Peres' losing prime
that inexperience was former Prime
Benjami n
ministerial campaign against Binyamin
Minister Ehud Barak's undoing, and that
Ben-Elie. zer
Netanyahu. His ensuing unpopularity caused
Mitzna doesn't have anything like Barak's
Ramon to pass up a run for the Labor leader-
brain, only his political inexperience.
ship
against
Ehud Barak in 1997, and in the 2001
Ramon calls the idea of Mitzna as national savior an
race between Burg and Ben-Eliezer, Ramon was criti-
illusion.
cized for failing to support his friend Burg.
Ramon was persuaded to run this time to stop Ben-
Jew From Iraq
Eliezer. Now, by staying in the race and not transfer-
Ben-Eliezer, 66, a blunt, Falstaffian character, was
ring his allegiance to Mitzna — as most of his sup-
born into a family of well-to-do merchants in the
porters
have advised him to do — Ramon could, iron-
southern Iraqi city of Basra. At age 13, he was spirit-
ically,
save
Ben- Eliezer's skin.
ed to Israel through Iran and taken to the left-wing
As the incumbent, Ben-Eliezer controls the party
Hashomer Hatzair's Kibbutz Merhavia.
machine, which is worth a few percentage points in
Three years later, when Ben-Eliezer's family
bringing out the vote on election day. With Ramon
arrived penniless, he moved with them to a transit
still in the race and taking votes from Mitzna, that
camp near Netanya. Young Ben-Eliezer and his
might just be enough to prevent the Haifa mayor from
father worked as laborers in nearby factories.
winning.
"Everything I have achieved, I have achieved on
Party Dogfight
With Ramon staying in race, Labor leadership primary is up for grabs.
LESLIE SUSSER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
A
little over a week before the Labor Party's
Nov. 19 primary elections, Haifa Mayor
Amram Mitzna was well ahead in the
three-way race for party leadership.
Unfortunately for Mitzna, if a week is a long time in
politics, in Israeli politics it's an eon.
Indeed, the Mitzna camp was eagerly
awaiting a Nov. 11, press conference
where legislator Haim Ramon was expect-
ed to announce that he was withdrawing from the
race. That would have all but sealed Mitzna's victory
over incumbent Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.
Yet Ramon surprised everyone by announcing he
would f ig b ht on until the bitter end. Pulling out now,
pundits explained, would probably have spelled the
end of Ramon's political career.
Ramon's perseverance means that both Mitzna and
Ben-Eliezer may fail to get the minimum 40 percent
support required to win outright in the first round.
That would set up a runoff between the two leading
candidates a week later. Though Mitzna and Ramon
are seen as more dovish than Ben-Eliezer, the three
stand for many of the same things.
The soft-spoken Mitzna, 57, was born on Kibbutz
Dovrat to German immigrant parents and grew up in
the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Haim. At 15, he entered a
prestigious army boarding school in Haifa, a year
behind such luminaries as Amnon Lipkin-Shahak,
who later became the Israeli army chief of staff and a
Cabinet minister, and Matan Vilnai, a former deputy
chief of staff and Labor Party Cabinet minister who
today is one of Mitzna's major supporters.
One of the most noteworthy points of Mitzna's
army career was his clash with then-Defense
Minister Ariel Sharon during the 1982 Lebanon
war. Sharon had taken much of the blame after
Israel's Lebanese Christian allies massacred
Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.
When Mitzna heard Sharon defending himself by
saying that similar things had happened before, he
resigned in protest, and retracted it only under urg-
ing from Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
ANAL YSIS
Battle-Hardened
Mitzna received a medal for exemplary conduct for
his coolness under fire in the 1967 Six-Day War: As
his tank battalion approached its objective in Gaza,
the commander's head was blown off by an Egyptian
shell. Mitzna, then just 22, covered the body with a
map of the Sinai peninsula and conducted the battle
himself. He received another medal for bravery in
the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
When the first Palestinian intifada erupted in
December 1987, Mitzna — by now a major general
— was in the hot seat as head of Central Command,
11 / 15
2002
22
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