Labor abandoned its values and the path of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin,
former Labor MK Colette Avital said on Tuesday, announcing her support for
Meretz.
Avital told Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On that she planned to vote
for the latter’s party, because Labor had given up on the peace
process.
“Unfortunately [Labor leader Shelly] Yacimovich abandoned the
way of Rabin and is whitewashing the settlements, which are an obstacle to
peace,” stated Avital, a former Labor candidate for president.
“I cannot
vote for a party that will not support peace, that will not support evacuating
settlements,” she added. “If Yacimovich turned Labor into a centrist party, it
is clear that my place and that of those who share left-wing values is in
Meretz, which is the only Zionist leftist party in Israel.”
Gal-On
thanked Avital for her support and said Meretz waved the flag of peace
high.
“I promise you that you will never regret putting faith in Meretz.
We will represent the values of the Left in the Knesset, without compromising,”
she stated.
In response to Avital’s announcement, Labor said there was
“no connection between this step and ideology.”
The party said Avital was
going to be fired from her post as director-general of the Berl Katznelson
Foundation, which is connected to Labor and its ideology, because she was
unsuccessful at her job.
“Avital was appointed to her job by [Defense
Minister] Ehud Barak while he was in [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu’s
government, and had no ideological problem while she was being paid,” Labor
added.