Former MK Orly Levy-Abekasis, who is number two on the joint Labor-Gesher list, said the party will not join a Likud-led government
In an interview with Channel 12, Levy-Abekasis said: "We will not be [Israeli Prime Minister] Binyamin Netanyahu's life preserver. You cannot bribe me with a position in the government. We will provide a real alternative and we will ensure that the next government will properly take care of social issues. We will protect the invisible citizens, who unfortunately are the ones who will be on the table when discussing cuts."
Levy-Abekasis also said she does not regret not joining former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his "Democratic Camp": "When there is substance and character, I'm always in favor of unity, but around Ehud Barak there are suspicions. The guy said, in his own voice, that after [Jeffrey] Epstein was charged in 2008 for trafficking minors and forcing them into prostitution, he agreed to give him a second chance. I will not work together with someone who wants to give pedophiles a second chance."
When asked if she would have been conflicted if Labor leader Amir Peretz ran against her father, former minister David Levy, she said: "I'm not divided, there's no question at all. It's all urban legends made up for the elections, or someone's head is burning up. It never happened and no one turned to me with any requests. Amir knows, and others know, that if my father had wanted to run for the leadership, I would have been at the forefront, working to bring him as many votes as I could to support him."
Regarding the results of April's elections, which left her outside the Knesset, she said: "I teach my daughters to go with their truth, with their hearts, to say, 'At least I tried.' Unlike others, I went to a political desert because of the issues I was dealing with, which did not interest the party I was in. They removed me from their list and took my parliamentary tools, and even the funding for parties, which meant that I needed to bring all the money from myself or friends in order to even fund a minimal campaign."
"We managed to reach people's consciousness, but the fear that we wouldn't pass the electoral threshold caused a lot of people to vote for others at the last second. I sat looking at the exit polls that night, I saw the results and a lot of people told me, 'Forget it, go home.' But I said, 'Absolutely not, I have my activists and my people who are downstairs waiting for news.'"