Several prominent Zionist Camp Knesset members who have been recognized for their social activism were caught by surprise Dec. 6 when they learned from media reports that their party leaders had held a press conference to announce a new campaign against the two-year budget that the Knesset is expected to approve by the end of this month. The launch of the “Netanyahu’s Hidden Tax Fraud” campaign featured Knesset member and professor Manuel Trachtenberg. Sitting beside him on a podium were Zionist Camp co-leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni and the head of the party’s Knesset faction, Merav Michaeli.

“We are well in the midst of debating the state budget in the Knesset,” said Trachtenberg. “This time we want to raise the curtain on Netanyahu’s economic fraud, the fraud revolving around his hidden taxes. These are all the extra payments that they take out of our pockets every month.” Trachtenberg had been a hot item when he headed the committee formed in the wake of the 2011 social justice protests. Since then, as a run-of-the-mill Knesset member, he has all but disappeared.

Among the people who had no part in the campaign's launch and knew nothing about it were two former party chairs, Amir Peretz and Shelly Yachimovich, who as early as a decade ago had put social issues at the top of the party’s agenda. Also missing were Stav Shaffir, Itzik Shmuli and Yossi Yona, Knesset members who had achieved prominence as icons of the social protests. They, too, knew nothing about the new campaign.

When some of these party members were asked to post relevant materials on their Facebook pages, they didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What bothered them wasn’t just the anachronistic content, which was reminiscent of Yair Lapid’s “Where’s the Money” campaign of 2013, or that no one actually bothered to tell them about the campaign in the first place. Rather, the bulk of their frustration centered on the illogical way in which the senior opposition party was acting, particularly given that it is rapidly crashing in the polls and public opinion. Instead of uniting the party’s ranks, its leaders seemed more interested in promoting themselves through a public relations campaign.