Knesset member Shelly Yachimovich headed the Labor Party from 2011 to 2013. During those two years, she led the party to a general election while eschewing the diplomatic platform of the most senior party in the Israeli peace camp and burying it deep in the closet.

Riding on the coattails of the 2011 social justice protest, Yachimovich went full throttle with a strategic approach that underscored the Labor Party’s social democratic banner de rigueur, while addressing the diplomatic issue as little as necessary. Thinking that if she focused only on social and economic issues while dimming her party’s character as the standard-bearer of a diplomatic compromise, she had hoped to garner support from right-wing voters who were not die-hard.

Acting much like Yesh Atid's Chairman Yair Lapid, she, too, tried to curry favor with the settlers. In his case, during the January 2013 elections, Lapid won 19 seats out of 120. In Yachimovich’s case, this approach collapsed, awarding her only 15 seats, having lost voters to the Meretz Party and Tzipi Livni’s now-defunct Hatnua Party.

Even back then, Yachimovich was slow to understand her colossal mistake. It was only in May 2013, 20 months after having been elected as chairwoman of the party and after realizing that a party primary was in the offing, that she found it appropriate to schedule a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “I have just met with Mahmoud Abbas for a tete-a-tete. Those who want to get an update should contact me,” she texted her bewildered faction members. Her text was sent in tandem with a press release she had issued right after leaving Ramallah. In talks with activists back in those days, she admitted to having been wrong not to give the diplomatic issue its proper weight.