/ BARAK / 105 Yet the turnout was the lowest in Israeli history. Arik received fewer votes than I had in 1999. Around half of the 1.8 million people who had supported me stayed at home. I conceded defeat after the first exit polls and said I would be stepping down as head of the Labor Party. Still, since the election had been only for Prime Minister, Labor remained the largest party in the Knesset. Mathematically, Arik might be able to cobble together the required 61-seat majority with an assortment of smaller parties. But without Labor as ballast, his government would be even more precarious than mine. When I triggered the election, he’d let it be known that if he won, he hoped to include Labor in his government, with me as his Defense Minister. Even though I’d announced I was stepping aside, he phoned me the morning after the election to make that argument again. He said Israel needed a strong government, especially to confront the escalating violence. Having a person with my background, whom he knew well and trusted, in the defense portfolio was important. I didn’t say yes. Unfortunately, I failed to do what I should have done: I didn’t immediately say no. When the public learned about Sharon’s interest in a unity government, Labor descended into bickering. Some of my former ministers, like Yossi Beilin and Shlomo Ben-Ami, were against the idea of joining any Likud-led government. They were especially disgusted by the prospect of doing so under Arik, the architect of the 1982 Lebanon War. Most of the Labor’s central committee did seem in favor of joining. But given the scale of my election defeat, many wanted do so without me. For a few days, Arik kept phoning me. I did feel that the substance of the arrangement he suggested made sense. But over that first week, I realized that, understandably, he had little interest in addressing my policy concerns. I decided to focus instead on ensuring a properly organized transition to a new Labor party leader, and publicly