In Israel’s Labor Party, everybody fights everybody

On the night of March 5, Chairman of the Labor Party and Knesset member Isaac Herzog flew to Moscow for a diplomatic visit, leaving behind him a party in chaos — in the throes of an all-out war.

Herzog’s leadership rivals — Knesset members Shelly Yachimovich and Eitan Cabel — are currently struggling to handle the media exposure of their own lies about the existence of a political deal between them in which Cabel would help Yachimovich run to head the Histadrut (the general labor union) and Yachimovich would help Cabel run to head Labor. And so, Herzog could enjoy a little political quiet after long months of humiliation and attacks from within his own party.

The deal between Cabel and Yachimovich — indicated in a recorded conversation between them — exposes Herzog’s two rivals as small-time, shady politicians. But this isn’t the only thing encouraging Herzog these days. He is also enjoying the disclosure of a regional peace initiative, which was the basis of his coalition negotiations with the Likud six months ago. These coalition talks and the secret initiative itself were both thwarted by Netanyahu. At the time, with the initiative kept secret, Herzog was strongly criticized by his peers for negotiating with Netanyahu. Now, suddenly, Herzog got an ideological alibi for what then seemed like his crawling into Netanyahu’s government. Back then the talks actually damaged the party fatally, ruining its image as the main alternative to the right’s rule.

Yair Lapid, the chairman of Yesh Atid, reaped the benefits of this political damage, as he collected more and more disappointed Labor voters for his party. We can assume that the latest mud wrestling in the party will only sharpen the disappointment of former Labor supporters and increase the pace of the defection to Lapid.