OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, November 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Amram Mitzna, mayor of Haifa, was elected new leader of the Israeli Labor Party on Tuesday, November 19, Israel's second private TV channel reported, giving the results of an exit poll.

Mitzna swept to victory with 57 percent of the vote against 35 percent for incumbent leader and hawkish former defense minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, according to the results broadcast on Israeli television.

The Mina Tzemach institute's results of the Labor primaries, in which moderate MP Haim Ramon lagged behind with eight percent, were aired as the polls for the party's 110,000 cardholders closed.

The final results were due to be released around midnight (2200 GMT), Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

A relative newcomer in Israeli politics, the 57-year-old Mitzna pulled off a spectacular rise to the top of his ailing party, while establishing himself as leader of Labor's doves.

Despite the former general's stunning triumph, the chances of a January 28 election victory for the Haifa mayor, who supports peace talks with the Palestinians, remain slim against right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Mitzna’s program includes withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, evacuating Gaza Strip settlements, withdrawing from most of the West Bank, dismantling isolated Jewish settlements in the West Bank and reaching a compromise on the prickly issue of east Jerusalem, the Arab part of the city annexed by Israel after the 1967 war.

Shimon Peres, a former Labor prime minister, called over Israeli television for Mitzna to make "an effort to unify because the party is a team affair and we must close ranks to move forward".

Political analysts said that the defeat of Ben-Eliezer could lead to a breakup, with many of his sympathizers tempted to join other centre-left groups.

The former defense minister himself said Labor under Mitzna risked turning into a copy of the left-wing Meretz party.

The center-left party has undergone an identity crisis since former prime minister Ehud Barak lost to Sharon in February 2001 after failing to strike a peace deal with Arafat at the July 2000 U.S.-brokered Camp David talks.

Labor, which launched the Oslo peace process, is deeply divided after almost two years of close collaboration with Sharon in his national unity coalition, where Ben-Eliezer oversaw the largest invasion of the West Bank in 35 years before walking out in October.

Mamduh Nawfal, an advisor to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, said “Mitzna's victory will mean there is a partner for peace again and his failure will signify that there is no more hope and that the current deadlock is to go on.”

Were Ben Eliezer reelected, this would mean he could “accommodate again” Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who heads the right-wing Likud party and who collaborated with Ben-Eliezer for 20 months in a national unity coalition until the Labor chief walked out last month, said Nawfal.

Palestinian Labor Minister Ghassan Al-Khatib said for his part that the Labor primaries will place Israelis and Palestinians at “a crossroads.”