The Labor Party’s Central Committee will meet in Tel Aviv on Nov. 8. On its agenda: approving the addition of 450 new delegates. Ostensibly, this is a routine procedure by the Zionist Camp's major partner, with an easily anticipated outcome. But tempers are running so high in the party that it looks like it is reverting to its old, familiar ways of deposing its chair after losing an election.

This time, Zionist Camp leader and Labor Chair Isaac Herzog’s opposition within the party is arguing that the procedure he is spearheading to add 450 new delegates is against regulations. They claim that it is intended to empower him to tilt votes on critical issues in his favor. One of those critical issues is whether the party should delay its primary for the party leadership.

Herzog isn’t the first party chair to act this way. So did his predecessors Ehud Barak and Shelly Yachimovich. Now, with Herzog’s leadership being challenged both openly and surreptitiously, and with old familiar faces and a brand-new group of aspirants breathing down his neck, things look like they are getting out of control.

This is the only way to explain Herzog’s outburst at a Zionist Camp faction meeting this week, during an argument between him and Knesset member Yossi Yonah. The conflict began when Yonah asked to hold a discussion about bringing these new delegates into the committee, the same demand that key party activists had made in a letter to Herzog.