Former health minister Haim Ramon unsuccessfully begged activists at the January 30, 1994, Labor Party convention to stop themselves from committing political suicide and support his universal healthcare proposal.
“Like a whale that lost its sense of direction, you are storming the beach again and again and trying to commit suicide,” he told the activists. “And I, with my limited strength, am trying to push you back to the water to save your life. But you don’t want, you don’t want. You insist on committing suicide.”
Twenty-seven years later, Israelis enjoy the universal healthcare that has enabled more than two million of them to obtain coronavirus vaccines. But the Israeli Center-Left appears to still be on the beach, gasping for air.
The difference is that the Labor Party is very far from being the leviathan it once was. Instead, there are several parties in the Center-Left, all gasping beneath the surface of the elusive 3.25% electoral threshold.
The only parties that are safe in the bloc are Yesh Atid in the Center and Meretz on the Left. The parties hovering around the threshold are Blue and White of Benny Gantz and the Israelis Party of Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai.
Well below the threshold there are Labor, the Veterans Party of former Labor MK Danny Yatom, the Tnufa Party of former Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelah, the Democratic Party of anti-Netanyahu protesters, the Economy Party of former accountant-general Yaron Zelekha and part of the Telem Party of former Likud minister Moshe Ya’alon, who is fielding candidates with very little in common.
Gantz has called on them all to unite and begrudgingly admitted that Yesh Atid chairman Lapid will be their leader.
But if anything, they have been doing the opposite, attacking each other, splintering further and further and wasting ridiculous amounts of money on billboards, bus signs and ads online. None of them drafted former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, who could have been a game changer. If the situation stays the same as it is now, there could be hundreds of thousands of votes that will be wasted on parties that will not end up represented in the Knesset.
Lapid has remained steady at 14 seats instead of rising. Huldai has gone down and not up. And Gantz has not left politics, making it harder for parties that dislike him to unite.
In perhaps the ultimate sign of desperation, Labor activists are turning to former prime minister Ehud Barak, who has left their party in shambles twice, just because he is the only candidate who the party’s internal polls found has the potential to cross the threshold.
So is all hope lost for the bloc?
It is too soon to say.
The deadline for parties to submit their lists to the Central Elections Committee is February 4. That still leaves plenty of time for them to flex their muscles ahead of the final polls that will help decide which mergers end up taking place.
Besides mandates, Lapid will be deciding what parties to merge with based on values and trust. He does not trust Gantz or Shelah and would not want to reward Ya’alon for turning down his offer to join Yesh Atid. The Israelis Party appears to be the best fit, but its No. 2, Avi Nissenkorn, has not proven himself as trustworthy to Gantz or Huldai, and he also rejected an offer from Lapid.
Sources in Yesh Atid said one possibility will be to invite party leaders without their parties.
The first polls that truly matter will be after the February 4 deadline. Lapid has the potential to rise significantly in the polls if the mergers prove successful.
Yesh Atid’s party infrastructure is strong. If Lapid puts together a strong enough product, he can then whittle away Center-Left voters from New Hope and Yamina on the Right.
Only then will it be clear whether the Center-Left has indeed committed suicide or whether it will be revitalized.