Israel’s Labor aims for relevance with leadership election
JERUSALEM: Israel’s venerable Labour Party, which led the country to independence and steered it for decades through wars, crises and the pursuit of peace is now fighting to merely stay relevant.
With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud firmly in control, Labor is trying to overcome years of missteps and regain some of its former glory with the election of a new party leader next week.
But even as it prepares for the vote, the question remains whether a new chairman can return the party of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin to the prime minister’s office — or have it continue to languish in the opposition.
“I think the party needs a new mission and the mission needs to be very clear: Not joining Netanyahu but replacing Netanyahu,” Erel Margalit, a hightech entrepreneur-turned-lawmaker who is among nine candidates vying for the party leadership, told The Associated Press.
Though the next national election is scheduled for late 2019, polls show the party currently winning just 10 to 15 seats in the 120-seat Parliament — making it Israel’s fourth or even fifthlargest party. Labor has not ruled since then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak was defeated in 2001, following a failed attempt to reach peace with the Palestinians.
The past 16 years have been a downward spiral, as the public has grown disillusioned with Labor’s moderate message of Middle East peace. The party has vacillated between meekly opposing a string of hawkish governments and serving as a junior partner to Netanyahu’s Likud in what critics saw as a feeble attempt to cling to power.
The current nadir follows one of Labor’s greatest recent successes, when it garnered 24 seats in the 2015 election after its leader Isaac Herzog joined forces with the centrist former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to form The Zionist Union.
But the merger still fell short of unseating Netanyahu, who has ruled since 2009. With Labor squabbling internally, the anti-Netanyahu votes in Israel have increasingly migrated toward the centrist Yesh Atid party and its telegenic leader Yair Lapid.
“Labor is at one of the most dire points in its long history,” said Nadav Galon, an independent consultant and former adviser to several key members. “There is just this sense that the party is not a true alternative to the government anymore.”
The next leader’s main task will be inspiring confidence among its members and the wider public.
Herzog, who has been chairman since 2013, has seen his popularity tumble after a series of failed attempts to join Netanyahu’s coalition. The 56-year-old is trying to defy the party tradition of quickly dumping its leaders by calling for continuity and running for re-election on a promise to merge with even more centrist factions to create one big bloc that can finally topple Netanyahu.