Ehud  Barak’s sudden resignation from the social democratic La­bor party and his calculated decision to remain in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightist government as defence minister was the culmination of a long and bitter process that may well lead to the party’s demise.

In breaking away from the  Labor party – whose leadership he recaptured in 2007 after a bruising battle with incumbent Amir Peretz – and form­ing a cen­trist Knesset fac­­tion, Atz­maut (Independence), Ba­rak single-handedly diminished its chan­ces of surviving as a viable party.

With four other Labor party dissidents – Ma­tan Vilnai, Shalom Simhon, Einat Wilf and Ori Noked – joining Barak, the party’s representation in parliament was reduced to a pathetic rump. From 13 seats after the 2009 election, the party now holds only eight seats in the Knesset.

How the mighty have fallen.

From 1949 to 1977, with leaders such as David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir at the helm, the party was a formidable force, building and securing the new state. The Likud, a right-wing Zionist coalition headed by Menachem Begin, broke Labor’s monopoly in 1977, coasting to vic­tory on the strength of corruption scandals in the Labor party and a nation-wide  drift to the right. Likud and Labor shared power during much of the 1980s, but La­bor triumphed in 1992, winning 44 seats as Yitzhak Rabin regained his old job. After his assassination in 1995, the party’s electoral fortunes plummeted.

With Shimon Peres in charge, Labor won 10 less seats in 1996. Under Barak’s stewardship, the party, while ousting the Likud in the 1999 election, managed to win only 26 seats. With Amram Mitzna leading it, the party  scraped by with 19 seats in the 2003 election. Mitzna resigned and was succeeded by Peres, who in turn was replaced by Peretz. In the 2006 election, he held on to Labor’s 19 seats.

Peretz’s undistinguished performance as defence minister in the 2006 war in Leb­anon cost him dearly. Barak, the former prime minister and chief of staff of the armed forces, supplanted Peretz in 2007 after ha­ving left politics following his de­feat to Ariel Sharon in the 2001 election.

For the next few years, Barak focused his energies on business ventures in Israel and the United States.  He returned to politics in 2005, making an abortive attempt to supplant Peres as leader.

Labor, in the meantime, had joined Ehud Olmert’s government as a junior part­ner. Olmert, the leader of the new Kadima party, became prime minister after Sharon suffered a massive stroke and lapsed into a coma. Olmert chose Barak as his defence minister.

When Olmert stepped down, his place was taken by Tzipi Livni. Although winning the greatest number of seats in the 2009 election, she was unable to cobble together a government, leaving the field to Netanyahu. Livni declined to join Netanyahu’s government, refusing to be a “fig leaf” for his policies. Barak, however, had no such compunctions. Eager to be defence minister again, he forced the Labor party to join the Likud, claiming he would shift Netanyahu’s thinking and cajole him into peacemaking with the Palestinians.

Barak’s opponents in the Labor party continued to believe that Netanyahu, not­withstanding his belated pronouncement favouring a two-state solution, had no interest in reaching an equitable accommodation with the Palestinian Authority.

For a while, Barak was something of a moderating force. He convinced Netan­yahu to agree to a partial settlement freeze in the West Bank. He urged him not to squander opportunities to forge peace with the Palestinians. He said that Israel would have to make “some difficult decisions” to advance the prospects of peace. Amid U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel last year, Barak concurred with the widespread condemnation of the government’s announcement to build 1,600 hous­ing units in eastern Jerusalem.

According to reports, Barak assured the United States, Israel’s ally, that Netanyahu would sincerely pursue a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority, led by Mah­moud Abbas. But when Netanyahu did not extend the partial nine-month settlement moratorium, so as to pre­serve his coalition government, Washington expressed disappointment.

The Obama administration let it be known that Barak had “deceived” the Uni­ted States, which had vigorously pushed for an extension in the interests of reviving talks, which commenced and collapsed within a three-week period last September.

Barak’s critics in the Labor party, as well as Livni, voiced support for an extension. And while Barak may have been sympathetic, he did not say so publicly. Barak’s deafening silence, along with his abrasive leadership style, his flaunting of wealth (he bought a multi-million dollar flat in Tel Aviv) and his messy divorce, did nothing to endear him to some party members.

As grumbling escalated, Daniel Ben-Simon, the Labor faction chief, resigned, saying that Barak was unfit to lead a left-of-centre party. As 2011 dawned, Ben-Si­mon left the party altogether. Labor MK Ophir Pines-Paz, a former ca­binet minister, bolted, too, asserting that the party had lost its way and that Netanyahu’s sole goal was to maintain the status quo.

Two other rebels, Welfare and Social Ser­vices Minister Isaac Herzog and Minorities Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman, warned the Labor party would leave the government unless peace talks, suspended by the Palestinians after Netan­yahu failed to renew the partial settlement freeze, resumed by the end of 2010.

It was not an idle threat. In 2003, the Labor party pulled out of Sharon’s Likud government after it was claimed that Sha­ron was not promoting peace.

All along, Barak said he would re­main in the government until the end of its term. This comment prompted Ha’aretz columnist Yoel Marcus to observe that Barak was lending legitimacy to the diplomatic im­passe and was “focused” on maintaining his personal position at all costs. An editorial writer in the same newspaper was just as scathing: “A respectable politician would have joined the opposition, but Ba­rak joined Netanyahu and [For­eign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman in exchange for the defence portfolio.”

After bolting the Labor party, Barak said he had placed the interests of Israel first, noting that Atzmaut’s top priority would be the state, “then the party, and only at the end, us.” Ripping into his detractors, Ba­rak said that a complex peace process could not be monitored with a stopwatch.

As the dust settles, Barak’s former colleagues are glad he is gone. “The Labor party, which found­ed the State of Israel, got rid of a hump on its back,” declared Herzog, the son of a former Israeli president.

But now that Barak has bolted – as did Peres, Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan in the past – the Labor party has the daunting task of rebuilding itself from the ruins.