Eight years ago last month, Ehud Barak stood in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on the night he was elected prime minister, and promised Israel the "dawn of a new day." This promise was only partially fulfilled.

In the less than two years in which he served as prime minister, Barak tried to be ambitious, and he failed; most previous prime ministers never tried to be as ambitious as he did. Barak took the Israel Defense Forces out of southern Lebanon, almost reached a peace agreement with Syria, grew alarmed and retreated, and ultimately tried to lead a peace process with the Palestinians at Camp David that was unmatched in its daring - and failed. The legacy he left was a mixed bag.

Barak's election as Labor Party chairman rekindles some hope, along with quite a few concerns. Labor has not had such an opportunity in a long time to return to power and extricate Israel from the dead end in which it has found itself. Barak's victory increases the party's chances of doing so. On the other hand, there lurks the danger that the new-old leader of the veteran party has not learned the lesson of his failures as prime minister. All the same, it's worth mentioning that in its short history, Israel has already had one prime minister who failed in his first term and excelled in his second.

There is no reason to revisit the question of whether Barak will join Ehud Olmert's failed government; all the signs indicate that Barak will be appointed defense minister in the coming days. In that role, he will face tasks whose importance cannot be exaggerated. He must restore public confidence in the Israel Defense Forces following its failure in the Second Lebanon War, while simultaneously putting political negotiations back on the agenda. Barak's success does not lie in more and more superfluous, aggressive, military actions, but in daring moves in the political sphere.

No one knows as well as Barak how close Israel came to signing a peace deal with Syria. Now we can expect him to bring Israel back to the negotiating table, to the spot where he left off, and examine Bashar Assad's true intentions. If the Syrian president is really interested in peace, then Barak must impel the government to reach an agreement.

There is a role for Barak on the bloody Palestinian front as well: He must do all he can to bring about a lull, especially in the conflict between us and the Palestinians, on the assumption that such a lull will lead the Palestinians to put a stop to the terrible civil war they are waging in the Gaza Strip. Israel must do everything it can so as not to add dangerous fuel to the fire burning there.

Barak must also get the people who turned their backs on Labor to return to his party. He will have to prove that there is a real alternative to the dying Kadima and the increasingly strong Likud. He will be able to do so only if he presents genuine alternatives to the actions and omissions of both parties. Barak will have to unite all the forces in his party under his leadership - not an easy task, especially for Barak, who has never excelled at interpersonal relations.

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