Diaspora Affairs Minister Dr. Nachman Shai(Labor) commented Sunday morning on his party's poor performance in the elections for Israel's 25th Knesset last week and said that the party was too far to the left of the electorate.
"We didn't read the political picture in the State of Israel. Society is moving to the right and we had to draw conclusions from that. The public in Israel expects a tough hand and is ready to give up on certain values, and it may be that Labor should have gone in that direction as well. LGBTQ and feminism should not have been the core of the party," he said in an interview with Kan Reshet Bet.
, "It is possible that we were perceived by the public as those who are willing to put up with the lack of governance, with Bedouin or others taking over the country's territories. Something in our DNA did not resonate and the public who went to the right told us 'bye bye.' We should have read the map better and acted accordingly, and we didn't do that."
He blamed Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid for not focusing on the political game and thereby harming the outgoing coalition. "The camp's big mistake was that it focused on management and action and forgot that in the end the game is political. Both Bennett and Lapid wanted to be prime ministers, they were and forgot that they are part of a vibrant political arena which is full of speed bumps."