Amram Mitzna (pictured) , a former career soldier and current Labour mayor of Haifa, on Tuesday launched a bid for the Israeli premiership after a lightning campaign that has galvanised Israeli politics.
The declaration by the dovish 57-year-old reserve major-general that he is standing for the Labour leadership poses a serious challenge to the incumbent, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, and ultimately to Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, who Mr Mitzna on Tuesday said was "leading the state of Israel nowhere".
He urged an immediate resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians and said that, if those failed, Israel should unilaterally withdraw from Palestinian territory and dismantle outlying Jewish settlements.
The pro-Mitzna bandwagon has been gathering pace since he first hinted a few weeks ago he was pondering a leadership challenge. A poll of Labour party members last week indicated that, if primaries were held now, Mr Mitzna would trounce Mr Ben-Eliezer with 52 per cent of the vote.
The sudden emergence of the Haifa mayor as a credible challenger coincides with Mr Sharon's hints of a possible early election. Although the next election is not due until October next year, the prime minister has indicated he would force an earlier vote, possibly in January, if his controversial budget fails to pass the Knesset this autumn.
Mr Ben-Eliezer, clearly rattled by the sudden and vigorous challenge from an outsider to national politics, has tried unsuccessfully to seal a pact with another leftwing Labour challenger, Haim Ramon. His aides have also dusted off the Labour rule book to show that, in the event of early elections, the party could dispense with scheduled primaries this autumn, leaving him as leader.
As Mr Mitzna acknowledged on Tuesday, Labour is at a low ebb and many are leaving the party, partly in protest at Mr Ben-Eliezer's role as defence minister in the present coalition and his close identification with the policies of Mr Sharon.
"Sitting as part of the government today is not bringing the party to reform and to initiating a new alternative," Mr Mitzna said, noting the strategy of "force and more force" had failed.
"The decision to send in the army and the air force [to the Palestinian territories] is not the decision that will lead us to a settlement of our business with the Palestinians."
In a clear indication of his readiness to sit down with Yassir Arafat, with whom Mr Sharon refuses to deal, Mr Mitzna said that, if elected prime minister, he would immediately call on whomever the Palestinians chose as their leader to return to the negotiating table.
Although he appeared alone on Tuesday on the platform at Labour offices in a working-class neighbourhood of Tel Aviv, Mr Mitzna has already received widespread backing, ranging from the endorsement of Matan Vilnai, Labour cabinet minister, to the blessing of the Viznitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Eliyahu Hagar, an ultra-Orthodox spiritual leader.
Mr Mitzna will be leaning heavily on his reputation as mayor of Haifa, Israel's third city, a post he has held since 1993 and to which he was re-elected in 1998 with a 65 per cent majority. It is a mixed city where secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews, Arabs and new Russian immigrants enjoy relatively trouble-free relations.
If he wins his bid for the Labour leadership, he could find himself in a showdown with Mr Sharon for the second time. Exactly 20 years ago, the much-decorated tank commander, twice injured in Middle East wars, risked dismissal by calling for the resignation of Mr Sharon, then defence minister, over his conduct of the war in Lebanon.
Mr Mitzna said on Tuesday that Mr Sharon was "acting day-by-day, instead of trying to have a real target of where we would like to be in a few years. He is afraid to take difficult, sensitive and problematic decisions".