There was a surprising statement on the evening of July 20 by Labor Party chairman Isaac Herzog. His assertion that “from a security perspective, the disengagement [from Gaza] was a mistake” received considerable interest, and rightfully so. Herzog, head of the Zionist Camp — a center-left electoral alliance between the Labor and Hatnua parties — and also chair of the opposition, made this comment to a right-wing audience at an event to mark 10 years to the disengagement. Thus, it seems that he continues his efforts to veer toward the political center with a wink to the right, and to rid his party of the left-wing image that has stuck to it over the past few years, and especially after the March 17 elections.

There was good reason that Herzog focused on the security angle, rather than the ideological angle, to explain why the 2005 Gaza disengagement was a mistake. According to all in-depth polls and focus groups conducted by the Labor Party both before and after the election, the party’s soft underbelly is the lack of a top-tier security figure in its ranks. Combined with its left-wing image and growing security threats, this means that it has a very slim chance of winning an Israeli election.

That is why Herzog uses almost every opportunity to reiterate his commitment to security matters. The same was true of the firm response he released after the Iran deal was reached. He said, “In regard to security, I am more extreme than [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.” On another occasion, he spoke out against the screening at the Jerusalem International Film Festival of a controversial film about Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir.

This is not an easy period for the Labor Party or its leader. Its defeat in the election forced the party to conduct a reckoning with itself, and as usually happens in these situations, a finger was wagged accusingly at the party’s chairman. Though Herzog did win 24 Knesset seats (out of 120), he failed to lead the party to victory. Just like former Labor Chair Shelly Yachimovich after her electoral defeat in 2013, Herzog’s leadership is now being challenged. He can hear Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai revving up his engines, and even more so, he can sense the feelers being sent out by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The latter feels that the party is eager to return to a more security-oriented agenda and is checking whether conditions are ripe for him to re-enter the foray. When Herzog says that he is more extreme than Netanyahu on security matters, he undoubtedly means Barak as well.