TEL AVIV, January 27, 2009 (WAFA)- Haaretz Israeli daily said, Tuesday, that the Israeli Army Minister Ehud Barak would try to “Putinize his image” to attract votes of Russian immigrants to Israel, as he runs for prime minister.

'As you people say, they should be wacked when they're on the toilet,' Haaretz said Barak would say in a radio election broadcast intended for Russian speakers. The daily explained that the Israeli Labor Party, which is launching its campaign among the Russian speakers this afternoon, will ask them to support him, as they did when he last ran for prime minister 10 years ago.

The paper said that the indirect allusion to Putin is Barak's way of fashioning his image after that of an aggressive leader whom many Russian immigrants see favorably; it expected that he would try to identify with that as closely as possible, in the coming weeks, to get an additional Knesset seat with the help of the Russian vote.

“Barak hopes that the fighting in Gaza will change the tide and restore him as a player in Russian speakers' eyes”, Haaretz said, “under the halo of a military victory, Barak's messages in his address to the Russian public will be much more radical and aggressive than those in his Hebrew campaign. Russians are assumed to love power and to be looking for a strong leader and Barak will present himself as an answer to both these needs.”

Haaretz revealed that Israeli Labor Party sources say they expect to gain more than three Knesset seats with the Russian vote. “Off the record, though, they say they're hoping to get one-and-a-half,” it revealed.