Only once in all of Israel’s history has a new centrist party managed to win an election and form a government. It happened in 2006, when Kadima under Ehud Olmert won 29 seats. But Olmert waged his campaign from the position of prime minister after replacing Ariel Sharon, who fell into a coma in the heat of the election campaign.

Kadima’s big advantage was that it rose from within the government as a result of the crisis in the Likud caused by Sharon’s plan to disengage from Gaza. Furthermore, it already had infrastructure based on mayors and local authorities who had defected from the Likud. At its peak, polls gave Kadima as many as 40 seats. The leadership it presented to the public consisted of the most senior figures from the right and the left, with sweeping experience in government. They included peace icon late President Shimon Peres, architect of the Oslo Accords, and many ministers from the Likud and Labor parties.

Kadima rose with the clear diplomatic vision of advancing the peace process on the basis of the permanent borders laid out in the 2003 “Road Map for Peace.” On the other hand, when it came to results, the party failed. It went through a series of three leaders (Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Shaul Mofaz) and slowly evaporated.

As such, the challenge facing former Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, head of the newly established Israel Resilience Party, is nothing less than enormous. He wants to win the elections with a centrist party that didn’t even exist two months ago and is built around newcomers from the left and the right. He's trying to dance between the raindrops without getting wet.