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center parties thought that if they focused on issues other than the Israel-Palestinian question,
voters would fl ock to their support. Voters generally disagreed with that assessment.
Indeed, the success of Kadima as a centrist party was in contrast to both points. It drew
from Labor and Likud because popular leaders in both parties left to join it. In addition, Ka-
dima succeeded precisely because of its emphasis on a specifi c strategy toward the confl ict.
Several parties have occupied the political center historically, including the General Zi-
onists (later the Liberals); the Progressive Party (later the Independent Liberals); Rafi (Ben-
Gurion's split from Labor); the Democratic Movement for Change (an ambitious 1977 proj-
ect that ended by ensuring a Likud victory); the Center Party; Shinui; the Pensioners Party;
and Kadima. The fact that all of these are defunct except Kadima, which followed a different
course, indicates the problem with the centrist orientation.
The story of the Pensioners Party (Gil) provides a good example of single-election success
followed by collapse. The Pensioners Party burst onto the scene in the 2006 elections on a
platform of improving the status of retired people. In a major surprise, it won seven seats in
the Knesset, entering the government as an important coalition partner. In 2009, however,
it received few votes and lost all of its seats. Disappointed at the failure to win the promised
reforms or tired of the party now that it was no longer a novelty, voters returned to their tra-
ditional loyalties.
Kadima
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon formed Kadima in 2005 by splitting from his own Likud Party in
the face of extensive opposition to his plan for a unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
The new party put forth the argument that maintaining Israel as a Jewish and democratic
state was more important than trying to hold onto the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It put
religious and Arab candidates on its list, as well as ex-Labor and ex-Likud leaders. The party
took more leaders and seats from Likud than from Labor, since many from the former party
followed Sharon into Kadima. Because of Sharon's subsequent coma, Likud's Ehud Olmert
took over the mantle of Kadima leadership and led the party to victory in 2006. For the fi rst
time in Israeli history neither Labor nor Likud had won an election, and for the fi rst time a
splinter party was victorious over the party that it had left.
Kadima's fi rst term was plagued with problems, however. There was a great deal of criti-
cism over its conduct of the Lebanon War of 2006, and there were numerous scandals. Olmert
eventually resigned, and Tzipi Livni was chosen as Kadima Party leader. Livni, however, who
had barely won the party primary and who had not rebelled against Olmert even when he was
in serious trouble owing to credible bribe-taking accusations, failed to save her coalition.
In the February 2009 elections, Kadima won one seat more than Likud did, but because
Livni appeared to be unable to form a new majority coalition, President Shimon Peres asked
Likud leader Netanyahu to do so. Kadima opted to sit in the opposition, but Livni was unable
to parlay her position as leader of Kadima into a strong role as opposition leader. And since
Likud and Labor had both moved toward the center, it was not clear that Kadima had popular
alternative solutions to offer for key political concerns.
One of the central questions in Israeli politics is whether Kadima will survive as one of
the two big governing parties or, like previous centrist parties, prove to be short-lived. If the
