Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak has broken away from the Labour Party he leads, dividing the once-dominant centre-left movement in a step that could give prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a political boost.
Mr Barak, who is likely to remain in his post, had been under pressure within Labour, a junior partner in the governing coalition, to press Mr Netanyahu to move more quickly towards an elusive peace agreement with the Palestinians.
At a news conference announcing he and four of Labour's 13 legislators would form the new Independence faction, Mr Barak said he had faced a "never-ending fight" within the party and watched its "continuous drift to the left and again to the left".
In a letter to the Labour Party, Mr Barak's deputy Matan Vilnai, who defected with him, said the split would enable the government to pursue peace "without a stopwatch".
Speculation has been rife that left-wing Labour cabinet members, some of whom planned to challenge Mr Barak for the party's helm, would try to take the party out of the right-leaning coalition, a step that could have led to government's collapse.
Officials close to Mr Netanyahu said that by forming a new movement that included a core of defecting Labour legislators, Mr Barak was effectively ensuring the government would continue to have a majority with some breathing room in parliament.
"The prime minister has total confidence in his defence minister," a source close to Mr Netanyahu said after Mr Barak dropped his political bombshell.
The government, led by Mr Netanyahu's right-wing Likud, has 74 seats in the 120-member legislature and would retain at least 66 if the remaining Labour lawmakers joined the opposition headed by the centrist Kadima party.
Direct peace negotiations with the Palestinians that began under US sponsorship in September quickly froze after Mr Netanyahu refused to extend a partial moratorium on new housing in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The inclusion of Labour in Mr Netanyahu's administration had broadened its political base and was widely seen as softening its right-wing image internationally, with Barak a frequent visitor to Washington for talks with U.S. officials.
Two months ago, in what was widely described as an opening shot to oust Mr Barak as Labour leader, one of the party's top legislators publicly described him as "an idiot".
Political commentators said at the time that the former general who served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001, was working on borrowed time and that he would either have to step aside as party leader or risk being unseated.
Reuters