Yitzhak Herzog
Yitzhak HerzogMiriam Alster/Flash 90

The Central Committee of the Labor party convened in Tel Aviv on Sunday evening and overwhelmingly approved the joint Labor-Hatnua list, which is calling itself “the Zionist Camp”, for the upcoming elections.

Speaking at the conference, Labor chairman Yitzhak Herzog declared, “We are the real Zionism. No one will teach us about Zionism.”

“There is hope and a chance to create a different reality. I am proud and optimistic and even more than that," he added.

Hatnua chairwoman Tzipi Livni spoke at the gathering as well and claimed that the Likud was running a negative campaign against Labor-Hatnua because it is frightened of the joint list.

“[Netanyahu] feels that we are going to win so he is raising the level of incitement,” charged Livni, who added, "We will talk with all the citizens of Israel and told them that they are not alone, that we are with them. We’ll tell them that we will not abandon them after the election as he does. I meet a lot of people on the street and they tell me, 'This time you have to win’, and I tell them that this time we will win.”

The list, as was approved Sunday by the Labor Central Committee, is still missing a candidate in the #25 spot, to be chosen by Livni. Spots 16, 21 and 24 belonging to Hatnua will be filled with former MK Yoel Hasson, journalist Ksenia Svetlova, and the leader of the Green Movement Yael Cohen-Paran.

As announced Saturday night, Economics Professor Manuel Trajtenberg, who is the list’s declared candidate for Finance Minister, will be in the #11 spot which was reserved for a candidate of Herzog’s choice.

In addition, the Labor party decided that Major General Amos Yadlin will still be the Zionist Center’s candidate for Defense Minister, but will not be running for the Knesset. In the past, there have been ministers who were not Knesset Members at the time of their appointment. These include former Justice Minister Ya’akov Ne’eman, as well as former Defense Ministers Ehud Barak and Shaul Mofaz.