Doves’ Labor Lost: How Israel’s Once-Dominant Party Faded Into Insignificance

After consenting to join with the centrist Blue and White alliance, Israel’s Labor party entered the country’s governing coalition this summer after nearly a decade in the opposition. In previous times that might have been cause for the party’s members to celebrate; now it was not. Its entire parliamentary delegation comprises exactly three members (out of 120), a pitiful presence for the party that founded Israel and ruled it for three decades without interruption, and whose byzantine institutions were once the scene of colossal rivalries and fateful debates. Even to say that Labor’s election result is a “historic low” is a cliché now: Labor’s result has been an all-time low in each election for six of the last eight general elections.

Over that time, and especially since the last election, there have been many explanations floated for Labor’s demise. They tend not to explain much; in fact, that these explanations are so widely accepted reveals more about the party’s demise than do the explanations themselves. And the intensely held desire to ignore the real reasons behind Labor’s misfortune speaks volumes about why the party’s attempts to recover have been so difficult and so ineffective.

The explanations for Labor’s downfall tend to coalesce around two narratives. Let’s call them “Israel has moved” and “the revolution has ended.”