Revival tough with old failures in mix

I served under Rabin and Peres when Labour was in power, between 1992-96, still mustering more than 40 seats in the Knesset.

Then the long decline started. The party lost its direction, its soul, its constituency. Rabin, who believed that the ideological settlements in Judea and Samaria were a danger to Israel, was assassinated. Ehud Barak was kicked out of power in record time.

Come summer of 2011, and the Labour Party, which has been officially declared a dead horse, seems to have been resurrected. The young people who took to the streets of Israel, driven by years of social frustration, are now pushing for a political voice, and Labour is there to embrace them.

The protests have not rejuvenated the Labour leadership, though. Old hands have reappeared, like Amram Mitzna, who has failed as party chairman in the past, and Amir Peretz, who, devoid of security experience, made the colossal mistake of taking the Defence Ministry and was accused of making a mess of the Second Lebanon War. Maybe this has to do with MidEast or, rather, Mediterranean political culture, where one word is missing from the vocabulary: accountability.