Kadima MK Nino Abesadse on Friday sharply criticized party chairman Shaul Mofaz for "joining a Bolshevik coalition."
"I was in opposition and I followed the rules. I respected them," Abesadse said at a political conference staged by Israel's left in the ZOA House in Tel Aviv. "I would not break them. I respected that I had to sit with the likes of Othniel Schneller."
MK Othniel Schneller is a religious Zionist member of Kadima who resides in the Samaria community of Maale Michmas.
He has supported legislation that would mandate compensation or alternate land grants in lieu of demolitions of established Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria where claimants are able to prove ownership with normative evidence in an Israeli court.
Schneller was one of the Kadima MKs who urged Mofaz to join Netanyahu's government after he wrested the Kadima party chairmanship from Tzipi Livni. Livni – who as opposition leader pursued what some critics called "opposition for its own sake" – had shifted Kadima leftward in a failed bid to make up losses in the polls.
"I respected the rules of the game until the last minute," Abesadse declared. "But here, this morning, after what happened this week, I feel I am not obliged to respect the rules of the game anymore."
She added, "I have openly opposed this government and maintain that there will be no social justice as long as Israel is building settlements" in Judea and Samaria.
Abesadse's remarks, delivered on the same day that the coalition met to discuss ways of legalizing five houses in Beit El's Ulpana neighborhood, also underscored statements previously made by Schneller that Kadima had ceased to be a centrist party seeking to create an Israeli plurality and shifted to the left.
"There is no respect for Jewish groups, for the religious, for the hareidim," he told Arutz Sheva last year. "We lost our way."
Abesadse also attacked prominent members of the Likud known for their staunch nationalist views saying they must be stopped.
"The key is now in the hands of Elkin... in the Bolshevik coalition that I am a part of now," Abseadse complained. "We must stop this insane Bolshevik camp of Tzipi Hotovely and Zeev Elkin."
MK Zeev Elkin (Likud) is the chairman of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition. Tzipi Hotovely is a freshman lawmaker and nationalist firebrand with the Likud. Both are advocates of annexing Judea and Samaria.