Outgoing Labor Knesset member Eitan Cabel will not serve in the next Knesset, but made it clear on Friday that he will not disappear from the political map.
Cabel, who continued his harsh criticism of Labor party chairman Avi Gabbay, said at the conference of the Israel Builders Association in Eilat that he is considering running in the Labor primaries, scheduled for November, and is also not ruling out the possibility of forming a new party.
"If I could go back in time to when I was 18 years old – I would not join the Labor party,” Cabel said, according to Channel 12 News. “In the past 40 years, the Labor party has never tried to understand why the public does not vote for us, we always thought about why they vote for the right. We thought it was all a matter of who would be the leader. We were unable to create a new narrative. It's not enough to say two states for two peoples, Bibi says that, too."
"I am considering running for head of Labor, but there is the question of what I am running for," he explained. "Is it more correct to establish a new movement with a new narrative that corresponds on some of the things with the narrative that the Labor party has tried to produce over the years? I am thinking about anything that can create an alternative that the right-wing parties are prepared to hold a dialogue with. As far as I’m concerned, all options are on the table.”
Cabel’s comments come several days after the Labor party decided to accept Gabbay's suggestion and bump the primaries up to November.
Gabbay assumed his position as Labor chairman in 2017, beating both MK Amir Peretz and Jewish Agency chairman Yitzhak Herzog.
However, when the party received just 6 Knesset seats - an all-time low - Gabbay was blamed for the downfall.
Cabel has been one of the most outspoken critics of Gabbay and has repeatedly called on him to step down.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)