News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) A new camp is forming inside the Kadima party, and commentators say it may challenge Ehud Olmert's leadership of the leading party. The group of eight Knesset members will meet Friday in the home of MK Yitzchak Ben-Yisrael. The other members are MKs Otniel Schneller, Menachem Ben-Sasson, Amira Dotan, Michael Nudelman, Yohanan Plesner, Shlomo Mula and Shai Chermesh.

The purpose of the meeting, according to one of the MKs, is to decide who can best lead Kadima if Olmert loses his current position. "If we discover that Tzipi Livni can preserve Kadima as a large party we shall have to look at the possibility of supporting her," the MK told Maariv-NRG.

All of the members of the group are placed between slots 20 and 30 on the party's list of candidates for Knesset, and would thus not be elected if Kadima gets less than 20 seats as current polls predict.