When Avi Gabbay was elected in July 2017 to head the Labor Party, Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid was among his many well-wishers. Lapid noted that Israeli politics needs good people like him.

Less than a year later, the possibility of creating a meaningful center-left bloc to stand up to the right and lead to a change in government has been shattered. The two leaders of the significant opposition parties failed to effectively cooperate in the Knesset to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as they were too busy slinging mud at each other.

Netanyahu is reaping the benefits. He doesn’t have to spend energy and resources countering an opposition that is trying to bring down his government, and he is simply watching as the two people who wish to replace him fight each other. In the political history of the State of Israel, the opposition has never been in such a grave state that its leaders pray for the next election to be postponed as far as possible.

Channel 10's latest poll tells the opposition's sad story. Roughly three years since the 2015 election, the Likud headed by Netanyahu has grown to 31 mandates. The party of Lapid, who up to a year ago was considered a realistic candidate to defeat Netanyahu, has only 18 mandates and Labor, though Gabbay soared in the polls after his election and talked seriously about the prime minister’s office, has collapsed to 13 mandates.