Making Sense of Israel’s New Center-Left Party

Last Wednesday, Israel’s Labor party, led by Isaac Herzog, and the centrist Hatnua, led by Tzipi Livni, agreed to merge. Conventional wisdom holds that Hatnua gains much from this deal, and Labor next to nothing. Not so, argues Haviv Rettig Gur; Labor’s greatest competition comes not from the right but from the center, which Herzog has chosen to co-opt: