The two coin-operated black-leather massage couches, the kind that you sit in and relax while the little motorized balls inside the leather work their way up your leg muscles and into your back and back down again, should have been working overtime. But none of the 1200 Labor Party convention delegates packed into the smoke-filled cafeteria at the Tel Aviv Convention Center on Tuesday had any time for a 5-minute massage.

The last time the Labor delegates convened two months before the general elections in November was over a simple vote on internal party rules and procedures. This time they were deciding Labor’s future. Sitting around cafeteria tables, the conversations were about how Labor’s anti-coalition MKs would behave after they lost Tuesday’s vote, whether they would split the party, whether the party itself had any future, and, which jobs would be given to which ministers and MKs. Continue reading →