Former justice minister Yossi Beilin and MK Yael Dayan moved from unrealistic Labor Party slots to the slightly more realistic 11th and 12th positions on the Meretz Knesset list yesterday, enabling Labor Party strategists to claim the center as "the Likud is extreme right and Meretz is extreme left and we´re in the center."

The Beilin-Dayan move came only hours after Beilin met with Labor Chairman Amram Mitzna, who emerged from the meeting apparently convinced Beilin was remaining in the party. But since Beilin and Dayan were shoved down the Labor list to the 36th and 39th slots respectively, considered unrealistic in next month´s national elections, they have been in touch with Meretz Chairman Yossi Sarid about jumping to the party to Labor´s left.

With the move, Meretz leaders were speaking of creating a new, Social Democratic Party, which would include Meretz, Beilin´s grass-roots Shahar (Dawn) movement and Roman Bronfman´s Democratic Choice, which has already merged with Meretz. This new party "will be home to all those seeking to make peace with our neighbors and foster social justice at home," Sarid declared.

The deal was approved by the Meretz Council, but still needs to be ratified by the party´s convention, which will meet in a special session today at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Grounds. Party lists for the January 28 elections must be submitted to the Central Election Committee by midnight tonight.

After the results of the Labor Party primaries were announced on Tuesday, Sarid and Beilin met several times to work out their joint election bid. According to Beilin´s proposal, he and Dayan will run together with Meretz as representatives of the Shahar movement. Shahar is also an acronym for the Hebrew words for peace, education and social welfare. It was founded by Beilin in June in an effort to unite the peace camp, and as a launching pad for Beilin when he was threatening to quit Labor if Benjamin Ben-Eliezer was reelected party chairman but was not intended to become a political party. The dowry to Meretz includes some 5,000 registered members of Shahar.

Beilin first came into the Labor Party as a protege of senior statesman Shimon Peres and served as the party´s spokesman in the late 1970s, and through the 1980s and especially the 1990s, was a font of political and diplomatic strategizing for the party. Considered the original architect of the Oslo agreement, Beilin stuck to the vision of the agreement and defended it, turning into a lightning rod for anti-peace camp rhetoric throughout the political spectrum, even after the intifada broke out and blame was placed on Oslo´s failure.

But it was Beilin´s campaign against Ben-Eliezer as party chairman - because Ben-Eliezer took up the role of defense minister in the unity government and became identified with the IDF´s military measures in the West Bank - that angered Labor Party members. There was unhidden joy in the Ben-Eliezer camp this week when Beilin, who garnered about 28,000 of the 56,000 votes cast in the party primaries, found himself shoved to the 36th spot because of the party system that guarantees top "realistic" slots to various sectors, such as the kibbutzim, women, immigrants and geographic areas.

The agreement hammered out by Beilin and Sarid also places other Shahar representatives in the joint list, including former Labor MK Hagai Merom, the author Zvia Greenfeld, former UN ambassador Yohanan Bein, Professor Eli Bar-Navi, former commander of the IDF artillery corps Doron Kadmiel and the chairman of the Daliat al-Carmel local council, Ramsi Halabi.

Dayan, daughter of the late Israeli icon Moshe Dayan, said yesterday Labor "looks more and more like some poor version of what the Likud had been."

Interviewed before the news of the deal with Meretz emerged, Dayan said that she was coordinating her positions with Beilin but refused to confirm reports that the two were planning to join forces with Meretz.

"With the Likud on the right and the Yossis on the left, we´re staying in the center," said one Labor Party strategist last night, explaining that while there was some concern about leaking votes to Meretz, the Beilin-Dayan move fit with their overall strategy which is to depict the Likud as being in thrall to the extreme right.

Labor Secretary General Ophir Pines-Paz said Beilin´s departure "saddens me, but Yael Dayan´s departure angers me, since she always moved into guaranteed slots as a woman candidate.

The party´s outgoing Knesset faction whip, Effi Oshaya, said "with all the heartache, in every election there are people who don´t win, but the fact one loses doesn´t mean you come out against your party, which has been your home for so many years. It´s not political and it´s not moral. It´s a shame when people who speak about democracy and equality come out against the decision of the voters." (© Copyright 2002 Ha´aretz 12/12/02)