Israeli center

Democrats head Yair Golan, National Unity head Benny Gantz, Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid, and Yisrael Beyteinu party Avigdor Liberman hold a joint press conference at the Knesset in Jerusalem, November 6, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Israel’s opposition is plotting a return to power. But it remains its own worst enemy

Despite a strong showing in the polls, Israel’s center-left camp is still in denial about its only trump card: joining forces with Palestinian-led parties.

By Joshua Leifer September 15, 2025

View of the separation wall as seen from the Palestinian town of Abu Dis. February 26, 2017. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

The Israeli center’s road to endless occupation

'Catch-67' claims to find a middle ground between the left's and right's concerns over the occupation. Its real proposal is to keep the status quo intact.

By Joshua Leifer January 23, 2020

Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid of the Blue and White party give a joint a statement in Tel Aviv on February 21, 2019. (Photo by Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

To unseat Netanyahu, his challengers risk becoming just like him

As party lists are finalized in the lead-up to Israeli elections, the big bangs offer little substantive changes. And the challengers of the center look uncannily like the current leadership. A visual expression of the Israeli election campaign would look a lot like a Jackson Pollock painting. All of the parties running were required to…

By Dahlia Scheindlin February 22, 2019

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Tzipi Livni holds a press conference in the Knesset, January 1, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Tzipi Livni couldn’t save Israel because Israel doesn’t want to be saved

Tzipi Livni, who bid farewell to politics this week, won’t be Israel’s de Gaulle. She will not be the leader that shakes us out of our collective slumber. Today, it is difficult to imagine any other Israeli leader having the desire to even try. It’s strange to consider that a mere decade ago, Tzipi Livni and her Kadima party won…

By Edo Konrad February 19, 2019

Former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz speaks at the annual World Zionist Conference, in Jerusalem on November 02, 2017. Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90)

The future is the center: Meet the parties shaking up Israeli politics

Caught between growing extremism on the right and a battered left, Israelis are flocking to a new crop of centrist politicians who prioritize economic issues over solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Galia Ben Haim discussed her political opinions while driving back from jail. In addition to her day job, she volunteers at a women’s prison. The inmates, she says, committed their…

By Dahlia Scheindlin January 28, 2019

If you're not Israeli, screw your copyrights. Yair Lapid (Photo: Levy dudy‏, Cc-by-sa-3.0)

Prominent Israeli journalist: Screw foreigners’ copyrights

Yair Lapid’s vapid comment shows us the rotten heart of the Israeli center It’s hard to explain the position Yair Lapid holds in Israeli public life, because there’s hardly any Western equivalent to think of. Lapid, the son of former justice minister Tommy Lapid – who was a prominent journalist and columnist for ages –…

By Yossi Gurvitz September 29, 2011