The chairman of the Labor Party, Merav Michaeli, smiled with satisfaction this week when the results of the primaries in the Labor Party were announced, and to be honest, she has something to say. Remaining on the throne of the leader of the party that once ruled the country for two consecutive terms? This is a phenomenon that even the elders of the party find it difficult to remember. her heads - this is an achievement. And it was not just any victory, but one that ended in what is known as "Assad's gap", and together with the letter of loyalty and the oath in Michaeli's name, which was signed by all the members of the faction on the eve of the elections - and it also somehow reminds of Assad - it is difficult Blame Minister Michaeli for the feeling of satisfaction. What's hers - hers.
Michaeli's general takeover of the Labor Party as sole control over its institutions, constitutions and conferences is well known.
But her victory, as expected as it may be, brought up from the bottom of the political sea an erosion wave that had been waiting two weeks to break.
The Labor Party is ultimately small money.
Now the game of the greats begins, and this is the arena that Michaeli is targeting.
Yes, the Labor chairman's eyes are now on the voters of Blue and White New Hope in the national elections.
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Since Gideon Sa'ar and Benny Gantz's somewhat secretive announcement of a joint run, it seemed that the left bloc had completed the building.
Gantz closed the corner of the anti-bibist right-wing voters to himself and freed himself up to plan what he hoped would be a feast of labor votes for him.
General Gantz and his deputy Sa'ar did indeed cover the right wing, but failed to secure the left wing, where Michaeli waited for the end of her party activities.
And this is the turning point: slowly, the understanding sets in, that just as right-wing voters see the alliance with Gantz as a transition to the left, so left-wing voters are not really willing to accept Sa'ar as their leader.
Disillusioned with the union on the left are Michaeli's next target audience.
And what still doesn't help Gantz is the fact that the empty words "right of state" somehow passed the hurdle of the two's sleepy declaration of allegiance, but the phrase "the security center" is a little less catchy, and is treated between bewilderment and ridicule.
Even the audience that thirsts for central and state clichés has a limit.
And so, instead of marching with full belt into Michaeli's base areas and getting votes from him by walking "on the floor", Gantz finds himself standing in front of the leader of the Labor Party in the depths of the left, and finds that she is also equipped with a straw.
This city isn't big enough for both of them.
Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, photo: Amos Ben Gershom - for the
And Michali will have a good case: she will claim that Gantz has already sat with Netanyahu in the past, so it is clear that he is not to be trusted, because he will not hesitate to sit with him again for a rotation.
She will emphasize again and again how much the New Hope wing can boast of its hawkish right wing, while the left side has to make do with empty statements and pro-settler gestures that may not be photographed much, but are very tangible on the ground.
And by the way, even in the area of charisma and the sense of change, things currently look more promising on Michaeli's side, certainly compared to the grayness of the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Defense, and especially compared to their unattractive lists.
If there is anything worth keeping an eye on and focusing attention on in the coming weeks, it is the rising tensions between Gantz and Michaeli.
This is a battle not only for mandates, but for political status.
And a victory in the battle between Sa'ar-Ganz's party and the Labor Party may be significant.
It has long been no longer just a question of a high number of mandates or more significant positions around the table of the next imaginary government.
It has been whispered in the political system for some time that Michaeli aspires to be prime minister.
This week, minister Isavi Frij gave this publicly, saying in an interview with Lieberman and Libeskind here, Channel 2: "Merav Michaeli is a fantasist, she fantasizes that she will be prime minister."
But in the distorted political world that Naftali Bennett created and left behind, when he wrested the prime ministership with six mandates, it is not natural for anyone to fantasize, that is, to strive to realize the formula outlined by Bennett.
Benny Gantz plans to obtain a reasonable number of mandates to pave his way to the Prime Minister's office.
Why wouldn't Michaeli ask to do a similar exercise to take the position for herself?
Is this privilege reserved only for tiny parties on the right?
Yesh Atid's new satellite party
The secondary victim of the battle of hardness on the left is Meretz.
Until this week, the party was mainly concerned with the retirement of its senior officials and complaining about the Labor Party's refusal to join the Union.
The accelerated disintegration and the remaining of Yair Golan as the sole candidate for the leadership of the list led the party leaders to pressure and court Zehava Galon to come save the party, until she finally relented and said "I want", meaning "I'm coming back".
Golan continues his seemingly combative and tough campaign of provocations, but in Meretz he is embarrassingly ignored at the moment.
From the beginning he was seen there as a foreigner - organizationally as well as politically.
With the military record and Nohlah scandals, Meretz under his leadership can forget about Arab voters who once passed her the percentage of the block, and also about voters identified with the core of the hard and anti-militaristic left.
Zahva Galon, photo: Photo: Gideon Markovich
In the corridors of the party, Galon is already being treated as the returning leader, despite the fact that she has not yet been elected.
In her first act as the unelected leader, Galon chose to make a pilgrimage to Yair Lapid, where she declared and almost swore that he was her leader, the man who, in her view, leads the left bloc.
On the face of it, this is a strange tactic.
Meretz is competing for an electorate that ranges between Labor and the Joint, but its people are actually afraid of a fork in the road to Yesh Atid.
At the systemic level, Lapid worked and succeeded in turning Meretz into a satellite party of Yesh Atid.
Galon is not the only one expressing growing empathy for Lapid and his party.
Minister Frij returns by Lapid and even wrote him a letter.
These are new natural partners, every vote for Meretz is actually a vote for Lish Atid, Lapid is the great savior, in exchange for his support he only demands to preserve the monarchy.
Michaeli has already made sure to announce that the responsibility for Meretz's fate lies with Lapid, and not with her.
It is not impossible that soon this responsibility will be expressed in real terms.
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