JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's defense minister won the leadership of the fractured Labor Party, party officials said early Thursday, bolstering Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's governing coalition.
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer's victory followed a contentious four-month battle over primary results and a partial revote. His opponent, Parliament Speaker Avraham Burg, wanted his moderate party to quit Sharon's coalition, charging that by its presence, Labor has given harsh policies against the Palestinians a measure of justification.
However, Ben-Eliezer pledges to keep Labor in Israel's center-right government, at least for now, maintaining that his party has a restraining influence on Sharon and his hard-line allies.
Ben-Eliezer, 65, a career military officer who once served as West Bank military governor, was born in Iraq and immigrated to Israel as a teen-ager in 1950.
Ben-Eliezer pledged to his backers at party headquarters that he would work for unity. Party spokesman Danny Biran said the unofficial vote count showed Ben-Eliezer won the leadership post.
With Ben-Eliezer as defense minister and veteran peace pioneer Shimon Peres as foreign minister, the Labor Party holds key positions in Sharon's Cabinet but has only eight of the 28 votes around the Cabinet table.