Kadima members: Barak hypocritical

Kadima Party members lashed out over the weekend against Labor Party Chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who cast aspersions on Kadima's "moral backbone" during a party conference Friday.

"If the moral backbone of Kadima continues to bend before power or interest, as it has been doing for years, we will force it to straighten," said Barak, speaking at the party's Tel Aviv headquarters in the Hatikva neighborhood.

"This is the time to act for responsibility and morality," he continued. "We must act to change the situation and we will."

"It's amazing how a man whose ethical backbone is crooked from the weight of the non-profit organizations scandal and who tried to buy an election with money allows himself to preach on public and political purity," said a high-ranking source in Kadima.

"Barak cannot even believe himself and all the polls prove that the public doesn't believe either in him or his collapsing party."

"A crooked ruler can't straighten an already straight one," said acting coalition leader MK Yoel Hasson (Kadima). "The last person who can preach integrity, ethics and leadership to Kadima is Barak."

"Barak should first of all take control of his own party, and only after he does that can he act as an instructor for ethics and values," he added.

MK Isaac Ben-Israel also went on the offensive against Barak's own checkered past regarding fundraising.

"Kadima does not need goading from those who were investigated in the past and barely escaped allegations of illegal fundraising," he said.

"Kadima is a dignified ruling party and will find the proper and democratic method of bringing about an orderly change of government, out of concern for the future of the state, for the quality of its leadership and its moral character."

In 2000, then-state comptroller Eliezer Goldberg issued a report accusing Barak's One Israel Party of fundraising violations during his 1999 electoral campaign. Although a criminal investigation was opened, the case was dropped due to lack of evidence.

Barak, who was serving as prime minister at the time of the probe, claimed ignorance of the affair, arguing that he had no idea that campaign funds were being channeled by party workers through a number of non-profit organizations.