Infighting hurts Israel's center-left bloc
Infighting between Yesh Atid Party Chairman Yair Lapid and Labor Party Chairman Isaac Herzog divide the center-left bloc instead of moving it toward new electorates, strengthening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As part of the “We’re fed up with the corrupt!” campaign, which began Jan. 1, the chairman of the Yesh Atid Party, Yair Lapid, fired a very accurate shot directly at the soft underbelly of Labor Party Chairman Isaac Herzog and his party. “Corruption means setting up fake foundations to bring illegal money into the elections,” Lapid said. He was referring to Herzog’s decision to keep silent when he was interrogated in 2000 on suspicion of violating the Party Funding Law, while serving as the head of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s election team one year earlier.
This attempt to “fire inside the APC [armored personnel carrier]” — meaning hurting one's own camp — as Herzog described Lapid’s comments, turned out to be the cherry on last week's cake, as far as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was concerned. It was a successful week for him, after a period of pessimism. The corruption investigation into the Yisrael Beitenu Party, the disintegration of the Shas Party and the reasonable Knesset list that Likud voters chose in the primaries on Dec. 31 granted new momentum to the ruling party. Then Lapid got up and launched his corruption campaign. While he did place Netanyahu high on his shady list, he also hurt Herzog and the Labor Party.
Infighting in the center-left bloc helped Netanyahu in the 2009 elections and again in 2013. Now it seems that although they learned their lesson, as evidenced by the union of Labor with former Minister Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua Party, war is breaking out again — this time between the joint Labor-Hatnua list and Yesh Atid, both of which are competing over the same voters. This is not good news for the center-left bloc, which should have cooperated to take down Netanyahu. Once again, it is being dragged down by internal squabbling.
Lapid began attacking the Labor Party earlier on Jan. 1, when he criticized the addition of professor Manuel Trajtenberg to the joint Labor-Hatnua list as its candidate for finance minister. The Herzog-Livni duo took pride in its latest acquisition, showing him off at a press conference the team organized. Lapid was quick to rain on their party's parade. “Anyone who brings in Trajtenberg is introducing a very clear economic policy of higher taxes,” Lapid said.
