Yet the delay in getting to that point had serious implications for my role as

/ BARAK / 134 Yet the delay in getting to that point had serious implications for my role as Labor Party leader. Since the negotiations with the Palestinians were stuck in neutral, I was under increasing pressure from within Labor to pull out of Bibi’s government. What on earth was the point of staying, they asked. All I was doing, from their perspective, was giving Bibi political cover for abandoning any serious effort to get a peace agreement. Their argument was entirely reasonable. My frustration was that, due to the need for military secrecy, the counter-argument was impossible for me to make: that I felt I had a responsibility to stay at a time when there remained a real possibility Israel might need to take military action against Iran. To a mix of consternation and anger among many Labor colleagues, I ended up taking what seemed to me the only realistic option. In January 2011, I left the Labor Party. With three other of our ministers in the government — who were, of course, aware of the ongoing Iran discussions — I set up a new “centrist, Zionist” party called Ha’Atzmaut, or Independence. We remained in Bibi’s government. My main focus was now on the Americans. In order to secure the “international legitimacy” any Israeli attack required, we had to win at least their understanding that we might feel it necessary to act. Fortunately, I had built up a good relationship with the key figures in the Obama administration. That had not always been easy, given the tension between the Americans and Bibi. That wasn’t just because of the deadlock in the peace process, still a priority for President Obama. There were other complications. Ever since the initial pressure for a settlement freeze, right-wing politicians and commentators, and Bibi himself, had taken to portraying President Obama as fundamentally unsympathetic to Israel. After the Republicans’ victory in the mid-term Congressional elections in November 2010, Bibi went a step further. He began cozying up to congressmen and senators on the other side of the aisle. This overt meddling in the internal politics of our closest ally was not just a breach of longstanding tradition, but of common sense. Members of the Administration began privately calling Bibi “the Republican senator from Rechavia” — a reference to the Jerusalem neighborhood where the Prime Minister’s residence was located. 420 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011891