Several Israeli Labor party veterans, including former ministers Ophir Pines and Avraham Shochat, convened March 20 at the party’s Tel Aviv headquarters at the request of party Chairman Avi Gabbay. For the past few weeks, Gabbay has been in a dizzying tailspin, which began with his crash in the polls and continued with a crisis of trust between him and the members of his Knesset faction over the issue of advancing the election. Now he wanted to consult with some of the party’s stalwart former ministers.

None of the attendees blamed Gabbay for the depressing situation. On the contrary, they sympathized with his position and gave him their support. All of these people were experienced enough to realize that when faced with such difficult circumstances and such low morale, there is no reason to continue hurting Gabbay.

Everyone present came away feeling that Gabbay was sincere and that he really wanted to listen. He had finally reached the conclusion that his stunning victory last summer in the party’s primary was not enough to ensure that he could stay on as party leader. Gabbay had shot through the ranks to head the party, when he was not even a member just a year earlier. Overnight, the party soared in the polls, which gave it 22 seats. But the euphoria surrounding his meteoric rise could well have laid the groundwork for all the problems that Labor now faces.

Gabbay did, in fact, try to eliminate all of the party’s wheeling and dealing as soon as he assumed his new position, and he ignored requests by veteran party members to organize gatherings for him. Instead, he said that he wanted to focus on staking out a claim in the hearts of Likud voters and ride their support all the way to the Prime Minister’s Office. Then this strategy collapsed, and voters fled en masse to Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party. Soon enough, the polls showed Lapid as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main rival for the post of prime minister, while Gabbay had become the leader of a party in decline.