Israel’s Labor Party loses Knesset stars
With Labor’s new chair Avi Gabbay controlling the party institutions, Knesset members Manuel Trajtenberg and Erel Margalit have decided to resign from their posts.
The back-to-back resignations of Knesset members Manuel Trajtenberg and Erel Margalit illustrate the changes underway in the Zionist Camp since Avi Gabbay was elected head of the Labor Party in July.
While each politician has a distinct personal agenda, there is a common theme connecting the two resignations. Both men entered politics after a series of high-level achievements in their previous careers. Trajtenberg was a respected professor of economics and sociology who became a symbol of the social protests of 2011. Margalit was a talented entrepreneur who founded a venture capital firm that made him very wealthy.
Both men also flirted with public service in their previous professions. Margalit funded social projects in the Israeli periphery, while Trajtenberg was appointed head of the government's committee for social and economic change in the wake of the 2011 protests.
Their entry into political life was supposed to offer them new opportunities to act on behalf of the nation at large, this time as prominent players in the government. Trajtenberg was the Zionist Camp's candidate for finance minister, while Margalit aimed higher: prime minister. He invested vast sums in two failed campaigns for the leadership of the Labor Party (the larger partner within the Zionist Camp), the last of which he lost to Gabbay. While Gabbay made little effort to keep Trajtenberg in the Knesset, in Margalit's case, Gabbay was probably relieved.
