pretty funny

this is pretty funny

The Machane Tzioni leader, Avi Gabbay, today sent Tzippi Livni packing, informing her that he is breaking up the union and sent her packing.

Gabbay made this move on live television, with seemingly not having informed Livni in advance.

Goodbye and good luck to Tzippi Livni in finding her newest political base, having moved around way too many times in the past decade.

Still, while there was exciting drama in Gabbay's announcement, and I love some good political chaos, this was really inappropriate. It is fine to decide to break it up, but have the decency to tell her and let her react. Doing it on live tv is cruel. Perhaps Gabbay wanted to craft his own image as a powerful leader, an image that until now needed a big boost, but I am not sure this is the way...

MK Tzippi Livni (Hamachane Hatzioni), like all the MKs, is starting to prepare for elections. With Livni it might involve deciding in which political party to run this time, as she has moved from party to party over the past few elections. For the meantime she is still holding her bloc with Labor as Hamachane Hatzioni, but that can change at any time.

While they prepare for elections, Livni yesterday evening called up all the leaders of the left and center to form greater blocs and alignments in order to win the upcoming elections. She specifically called upon Avi Gabbay, head of the Labor party, among others, to put his ego aside for the greater good of putting the party first and winning the elections.

I find "put your ego aside" to be very similar to calls for "achdut" - unity. When people call for achdut, they almost always mean do it my way for the sake of unity. Only rarely do they mean I will do it your way, and even less frequently do they mean let's find a way together that might not be perfect but would be beneficial to everyone.  "Put your ego aside" means move over and let me rule. It does not mean I will put my ego aside. Better you than me.

So, Mr Gabbay, put your ego aside for the greater good, or at least for Tzippi Livni's good.

In 1997 the cameras caught Bibi saying "The Left forgot what it is to be Jewish". Do you know what the Left did in response to that? The Left forgot to be Jewish.

  -- Labor Chairman Avi Gabay

Gabay seems to be workign really hard to upset his base. I wonder if he forgot what party he is the head of..

In recent weeks there has been a debate within the coalition as to when to hold new elections. The Prime Minister wants them as soon as possible, even within the year, while other coalition members want to keep them on the original schedule. For once I agree with Prime Minister Netanyahu. The current situation cannot continue, we need elections as soon as possible, elections that we will win and change the dismal situation

  -- Labor Chairman Avi Gabay

he's so cute. He think s he is ready for elections and to replace Netanyahu at the helm...

I am watching with interest what is happening in the Labor party with Avi Gabbay as the new chairman and his recent statements, and the opposition developing because of them.

Gabbay is saying things not quite in tune with the Labor party mainstream ideas.

When he ran for chairmanship of the party it was said that he was an outsider, not really a true or classic Labor person and had even been associated with the Right and Likud at earlier stages in his life, though being new to politics there did not seem to be anything clear on his actual positions or history regarding those positions.

It turns out now that at least on nationalist issues Avi Gabbay is pretty similar to a mainstream Likudnik, or even anybody on the Right such as a member of Habayit Hayehudi or Shas.

First he talks about not forming a government coalition with the Arab parties. Then he talks about not dismantling settlements. And now he is talking about how Abraham was promised all the land of Israel and we will need other creative solutions to come to peace besides for dismantling settlements.

People on the Left are livid, and I wait to see if they try to oust him from the chairmanship of Labor or if they give him a chance to come up with a plan that can challenge the Right in a realistic way. From that perspective, what they have been trying for the past 20 years or so has not worked and they have pretty much been kept out of power, possibly because of it. Maybe they need a new approach and maybe Avi Gabbay can bring it.

We will not sit with them, unequivocally. I do not see anything that connects us to them or allows us to be in the same government with them

  -- Labor (Hamachane Hatzioni) Chairman Avi Gabbay about the possibility of forming a government in the future with the Arab party

Gabbay is under fire for rejecting the Arabs outright, but the truth is no government-forming party has ever invited the Arab parties to join a coalition, so Gabbay is only expressing what every government, Labor-led included, has always done...