Tamar Zandberg, the new chair of Meretz, has entangled herself in a web of lies with the revelation that she consulted a right-wing strategist, Moshe Klughaft, during her campaign to lead the leftist party. Her actions are much more than a personal blunder. Zandberg’s crash just three days after a resounding victory in her party's primaries on March 22 forced Meretz, once considered at the forefront of the Israeli left, to come face to face with its internal leadership crisis. What it sees is not pretty.

Over the past decade, Meretz lost huge numbers of supporters. It shrank so much that it is now a small party whose continued existence is sometimes questioned. Yet, despite its crises, the party has always managed to survive and hold fast to its ideology, even as Labor, its big sister on the left, seemed to abandon its principles and inch toward the right.

Zehava Gal-On had resigned as party chair on Feb. 28. In all her years, Gal-On stuck to an uncompromising political line in all matters concerning a two-state solution, opposition to the occupation, struggles over human rights and Meretz’ social democratic ideology. Zandberg may have grown up in Meretz, but unlike Gal-On, she brought a new attitude to her primary campaign, declaring, for example, that she would have no problem sitting in a coalition with Avigdor Liberman, chairman of Yisrael Beitenu. In this, she ignored that Liberman has always been a red flag for Meretz, considering that he espouses a racist worldview and a far-right ideology.

Zandberg wanted to astound everyone by presenting herself as a new and updated version of Gal-On. No one thought she had a chance, but as time passed, it became clear that Meretz was taking a cue from Labor, which elected Avi Gabbay as its new leader last July. Meretz also wanted to shake up its ranks and stop running in place. Zandberg got lucky when two of the most prominent candidates for the party's leadership, Gal-On and Ilan Galon, both announced on the same day that they were dropping out of the race.