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/ BARAK / 21

There was a part of politics for which I was naturally suited after my life in the
army: to plan an operation, prepare and execute it. An ability to get the lie of the
land, assess your own and your rivals’ strengths and vulnerabilities, and to win.
And the “lie of the land” struck me as more encouraging than many Israeli
commentators believed. When I became Labor leader, I didn’t expect Bibi to fall
anytime soon. But I believed it was inevitable that at some point he’d have to make
tough choices about the peace process, and I doubted his coalition with the more
right-wing Orthodox parties would survive. I also took encouragement from the
fact that the political winds in other developed democracies seemed to be blowing
in our direction. Bill Clinton had won in the United States. In Britain, which had a
parliamentary system much closer to Israel’s, Tony Blair, as leader of a party
renamed as New Labor, had ended eighteen years of Conservative rule and swept
to victory. Behind the scenes, I immediately made sure that, with financial help
from Jean Frydman and other supporters, we began the practical work of learning
from the experience of center-left parties in other countries.

Within weeks of my election as Labor chairman, I used my acquaintance with a
British Jewish businessman named Michael Levy to see what lessons our Labor
party might learn from Tony Blair’s. Levy had been an early supporter of Blair and
persuaded the Prime Minister to welcome me through the famous black door of
Number 10 Downing Street. After chatting in the front hallway, the British Prime
Minister led me into the back garden to discuss how he had refashioned his party
and brought it back into government. In addition to modifying or abandoning
rigidly left-wing positions that most British voters had rejected, he had created a
formidable campaigning team under an ally and adviser named Peter Mandelson.
When I asked Blair whether it would be possible to meet Mandelson, he said he
couldn’t “give me Peter.” But he did put me in touch with Philip Gould, the polling
expert and strategist who had partnered Mandelson in designing and running the
election campaign.

We met at Labor headquarters in Milbank Towers so Philip could show me the
“war room” – modelled, in part, on Bill Clinton’s campaign operation – from
which the victory had been planned and executed. It was a large, open-plan space,
nothing like the warren of offices and conference rooms from which Labor in
Israel operated. Pride of place went to an advanced computer system, the heart of a
“rebuttal unit” which charted every statement from the Conservative Party so it
could be answered, neutralized or used to adjust Labor’s own campaign. I was

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