Labor Party chooses new leader to challenge Likud Party

JERUSALEM -- Israel's Labor Party chose a former general and newcomer to national politics as their leader Tuesday, an exit poll showed, hoping he can bring the party back to power in the general elections.

The exit poll gave Amram Mitzna, the liberal mayor of the coastal city of Haifa, 57 percent of the vote, compared to 35 percent for the current Labor party leader, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. Legislator Haim Ramon was a distant third with 8 percent, the poll of 1,000 people showed.

Ben-Eliezer conceded defeat but said he would keep his supporters together, hinting that he would continue to challenge Mitzna's supremacy from inside the party. He said he pledged Mitzna his support in the election campaign.

Gaza withdrawal

Mitzna declared that if elected as Israel's leader, he would reverse Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's course by withdrawing unilaterally from the Gaza Strip and resuming negotiations with the Palestinians.

"The Labor Party is embarking on a new path to present the Israeli public a real alternative," he said after early results were announced.

But while surveys had indicated Mitzna would win the Labor primary, polls also pointed to the Likuds winning the most seats in Jan. 28 elections.

Mitzna's main challenger in the primary had been Ben-Eliezer, whose reputation among many Labor supporters was tarnished by his stint as defense minister in Sharon's "national unity" government. During his 20-month tenure, Ben-Eliezer oversaw military strikes against Palestinian militants, and when he resigned last month, soldiers were reoccupying many Palestinian towns.

Ben-Eliezer had said his appeal among more hawkish voters made him the better challenger to Likud since Mitzna would "take us further to the left and keep us as the opposition for a long time."

About 120,000 registered Labor members were eligible to vote, and Israeli media said turnout was about 55 percent just before polls closed.

Sharon called an early election at the beginning of November after Labor left the government in a fight over funding for Jewish settlements. Sharon is battling Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Likud leadership, which will be decided in a primary next week.

Mitzna, 57, was already looking ahead to January's election and his top priorities in office, saying he would unilaterally withdraw soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip, the crowded coastal strip where about 5,000 Jewish settlers live among more than 1 million Palestinians.

"There's no reason in the world for us to be in the Gaza Strip," he said Tuesday morning as he toured party branches in the Tel Aviv area. "We will put our forces around Gaza, around the fence, protecting Israel."

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, said the election was an internal Israeli matter but that Palestinians "welcome any Israeli leader who is going to be committed to make peace with us and work according to the signed agreements."