This Hanukka, there’s no talk of miracles in Kadima

Current polls predict three seats at best for the party that won 28 in the last election.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem / The Jerusalem Post)
Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz 370
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem / The Jerusalem Post)
Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz gathered the eight remaining Kadima MKs who are running alongside him in the next election at his home in Kochav Yair Monday night to light Hanukka candles and express hope that there would somehow be enough votes for all of them in next month’s election.
Current polls predict three seats at best for the party that won 28 in the last election. Some polls predict that Kadima will become the first party to go from being the largest faction in the Knesset to not winning a single seat.
But there was no talk of miracles at the Mofaz residence at the event that was attended – with names in the order they appear on the party’s election list – by MKs Mofaz, Yisrael Hasson, Yohanan Plesner, Ronit Tirosh, Shai Hermesh, Yuval Zellner, Doron Avital, Akram Hasson and Ahmed Dabah, and their spouses.
Mofaz promised to win seats in the next Knesset the hard way.
“I am very optimistic,” Mofaz said. “We have a struggle ahead but we have a very good team of fighters.
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Experienced, quality people, doers who remained loyal to their path and their voters. The Kadima brigade is ready to fight for Israel’s character and its future.”
The MKs dined on potato pancakes made by Mofaz’s wife Orit and played with their party leader’s grandchildren.
Attendees said Kadima leader Tzipi Livni’s name was not spoken, and the only enemies mentioned were Syrian Greeks and darkness.
“Believe me, as a man who has seen a battlefield or two in my life, I am proud to march shoulder to shoulder with such excellent people,” Mofaz said.
Kadima signed a vote-sharing agreement Monday with MK Haim Amsalem’s Am Shalem party. The deal could help ensure that votes beyond what is needed for a Knesset mandate do not go to waste, but the agreement will only have an impact if both parties pass the two percent electoral threshold.
A Kadima official admitted that Kadima and Am Shalem had little in common.
But he said that after Labor made a deal with Yesh Atid, The Tzipi Livni Party with Meretz, and Likud Beytenu with Habayit Hayehudi, there were not too many options available.
“Sometimes, you have to make do with what you have,” the official said, referring to Am Shalem but indirectly also to his own party.