Minister of Social Equality Gila Gamliel is well aware of the inconsistent attitudes held by Likud Party supporters. In 2003, she joined the “Likud Rebels,” a group of Knesset members that tried to block the disengagement from the Gaza Strip. That group, which at one point numbered 14 ministers and Knesset members, made the life of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon miserable, while it won the support of Likud Party members. At the time, the rebels were popular guests on television, appearing frequently in news interviews. Gamliel was then a young Knesset member, but even at 30, she was one of the most outspoken and aggressive members of the group. She became the darling of the settler movement and other powerful right-wing groups, which promised her that she would be a member of the Knesset and minister forever.
Gamliel assumed that her career was ready to take off, and that the party’s Central Committee would place her among the top 10 Likud candidates for a Knesset seat in the next election. But like so many other members of the rebellious faction, she got drunk with power and carried away by hubris. Then Sharon split the Likud, founded Kadima and left the rebels with a shattered party on the verge of collapse. Likud members held the rebels accountable for what they thought was their party’s imminent demise.
Her punishment was quick in coming. When the Likud's Central Committee held a vote in 2006 to put together its list for the next election, almost all the rebels had been purged. The two exceptions were Moshe Kahlon and Gilad Erdan, who had insisted on maintaining the proper respect and loyalty to official institutions in their fight against Sharon.
Once she found herself out of the Knesset, Gamliel did some soul-searching. She came to the conclusion that she had been deceived by blaring headlines and the illusion of popularity among Likud supporters. In the end, she and her colleagues were blamed for the catastrophe. It took her years to rehabilitate herself and regain her position on center stage in the 2009 election. Since then, Gamliel has succeeded in establishing herself as a practical political figure, loyal to the institutions of party and state. She is someone who can withstand the temptation of getting into a populist squabble with Culture Minister Miri Regev.
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