The masochism of the Israeli Center-Left - analysis

• Author: GIL HOFFMAN
• Date: 29 December 2020
• Published date: 29 December 2020

Three months later, he already saw himself as fit to lead the party, and four months after that, he won the Labor leadership primary.

After being crowned the great hope of the Israeli Center-Left, Gabbay fared poorly in the March 2019 election and was forced out in less than two years.

Since then, many have eulogized Labor, which is currently polling below the electoral threshold and looking for a new leader. The likes of Benny Gantz, Gabi Ashkenazi, Ron Huldai and Avi Nissenkorn have all chosen greener pastures.

Many great hopes of the Center-Left have come and gone. Labor secretary-general Eran Hermoni mocked them all in an interview on the Knesset Channel on Tuesday, when he took out several disposable cups bearing the logos of Dash, Kadima, the Gil Pensioners Party, Kulanu and now Blue and White.

The dual press conferences of Gantz and then Huldai Tuesday night could be seen as passing the baton from the former great hope of the Center-Left to the new one. But is the 76-year-old Huldai really the savior of the much-maligned bloc?

There will only be one month in which that question will have to be answered. Political mergers among the Center-Left will have to be made before the February 4 deadlines for lists to be submitted to the Central Elections Committee.

The Center-Left is currently divided among six parties with indistinguishable views: Yesh Atid, Blue and White, Huldai's new party, Labor, and the unnamed new party of former Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelah.

By contrast, the much larger Center-Right has only four: Likud, New Hope, Yamina and Yisrael Beytenu.

This divisiveness is only one symptom of the masochism of the Center-Left that has been harming it for decades.

Channel 13 political analyst Raviv Drucker, who does not hide his left-wing views, lamented last week that the Center-Left has repeatedly given up the premiership for its values. He gave three good examples and then one questionable one.

Prime minister Ehud Barak could have formed a unity government when his coalition was crumbling in 2000, but he preferred the peace...