THE DECLINE OF THE LABOR PARTY

Prof. Ephraim Inbar writes about the hows and whys of the Israel Labor party's decline over the years. Among the details here, he says:

Even many leftist Israelis that wanted to prevent the success of the much demonized Netanyahu cast their votes for centrist Kadima rather than strengthening Labor. Indeed, the once hegemonic party in the Israeli political system – the Israel Labor Party – ended up in 2009 as only the fourth largest party, with a meager 13 Knesset seats. Meretz, to the left of Labor, fared even worse, barely obtaining 3 seats in the Knesset.

Many of those leftists who voted for Kadima may sooner or later feel buyers remorse, because the possibility that this party - whose exact standings are not clear - may be on the verge of going into a government with Likud. And some of them may go back over to the Labor and Meretz parties later on. Yet it does remain to be seen if Labor will ever be able to regain what it's lost over the past decades.