DM Barak: Kadima 'a party of air', Netanyahu like 'Santa Claus'

    Defense Minister and Labor chair Ehud Barak leveled harsh criticism at the Kadima party during at a Labor party convention Thursday, calling it "a party of air", adding "there's no telling how it will handle itself when it faced with reality." Barak also tried to distance the party from the Israeli peace movement, saying "Kadima has nothing connecting it to the Peace Camp". Barak also spoke against Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu, and brushing aside his proposals to tackle the financial crises by referring to him as 'Santa Claus". Barak also spoke of the Likud's new recruits, saying "although they are decent honest people, their views do not align with reality". Barak stated that the Likud's approaches will lead Israel to a conflict with the free world, or worse, with the entire region. "With these exact approaches this group has already failed in leading this entire country" he said. Earlier on Thursday, at a memorial ceremony for assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Barak warned of further political murders in Israel by "cancerous" groups of religious right-wing extremists. "The seed of calamity has already been sewn, it has been sewn in messianic groups. They aren't many, but like a cancerous growth they are deadly. We must not ignore this and must work to uproot it," he said. Assassin Yigal Amir shot Rabin three times on November 4, 1995. Amir wanted to stop the peace process Rabin initiated with the Palestinians. "The writing was on the wall [then]. Today it is also on the wall - with larger and clearer letters, and unequivocally," Barak added.(22,19)