“These days, an outsider would be likely to think that [Yesh Atid head] Yair Lapid heads the opposition and not us. We pale in comparison to him because we are too busy explaining to ourselves and others that we are in the opposition and not on the way to join [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government.” This post-election criticism of the Zionist Camp party was uttered by Knesset member Itzik Shmuli, one of the more prominent members on social issues in the party and in the Knesset in general. This indicates that tension is growing within the Zionist Camp and that pressures are being directed at its leader Isaac Herzog.

In a May 10 interview with Al-Monitor, Shmuli called on Herzog to lead the way in coming to a formal decision that the Zionist Camp faction will remain in the opposition until the next elections.

Shmuli, 35, one of the 2011 tent-social-protest leaders, was elected to the Knesset in 2013. For several years, he has been living in a falling apart public housing apartment in the city of Lod; he believes that if his fellow party members would spend more of their time in places such as these — poor urban neighborhoods and weakened communities in the social periphery — the election results would have been very different. He also explains under what conditions he would vote in favor of the reforms of the Finance Minister-designate, Kulanu Chairman Moshe Kahlon.

Excerpts from the interview follow: