(May 18) - First came the embrace of the party, next, the hug of the public and the press and yesterday, One Israel leader Ehud Barak finally found himself surrounded by the most telling sign of impending power of them all the General Security Service, in full force.

Honey, I'll just wait by the car, said a slightly ruffled Nava Barak as her husband was jostled from his bulletproof jeep through a bulletproof curtain and into the Jerusalem crowds by a dozen security men in matching khaki vests.

The men, clean-shaven and serious, managed, in between adjusting their earpieces and talking in deep voices into their sleeves, to push just about everyone present into some fence or stone wall and to give the candidate just enough room to catch his breath and say he was happy everyone had come out to show support.

"Oh dear, sorry," said one redheaded local policeman, who had practically toppled Labor Party Secretary-General Raanan Cohen into Meimad leader Rabbi Michael Melchior, "the GSS pushed me."

Gone for Barak, it appears, are the days of late afternoon jogs through the streets of hometown Kochav Yair with Nava, now replaced by the days of security checks and concerns.

Security concerns, in fact, are apparently so great that Barak's team went one step further, and brought in their own so-called Ehud commando whose job seemed to be guarding the GSS agents guarding Barak. The commando, made up of some two dozen men in their late 20s who all served in elite military units, showed up yesterday dressed identically in jeans, black t-shirts with little pink stickers on them and dark sunglasses, and followed Barak wherever he went.

From Haifa to Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and Beersheba the muscular men, who won't tell you their names or what they do exactly, forged a human ring around the candidate. I can't tell you who I am, but suffice it to say that Ehud is my candidate and I will protect him, said one who agreed to talk. Barak, succumbing to the inevitable and keeping his trademark calm and good humor, did his best to please all as he helicoptered around the country yesterday to rev up the electorate.

Come, let me just lean over and say hi to this cute kid, he half pleaded to one of the guards in Tel Aviv. Oh, just to shake hands with this very important community leader, he begged in Jerusalem where, by the way, he made his appearance at Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's own Katamon neighborhood polling station.

The crowds who came out to receive Barak yesterday freckled Haifa kids in 'Israel Wants a Change' baseball caps, and elderly Jerusalem couples in Barak t-shirts alike actually seemed impressed and pleased by the scene. Oh, its soo exciting. There is so much support. See, thats the next prime minister, one young Tel Aviv mother told her two roller-bladed kids. Where? whined one eight-year-old boy, I can't see anything but policemen.

Previous | Next