Former Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak held a meeting two weeks ago with key political activists from the Labor Party. The participating activists left with the feeling that Barak was examining the possibility of returning to political life before the next elections as the leader who can unite Israel’s center-left camp.

It was an unusual meeting. Ever since he retired in November 2012, Barak has cut himself off completely from any political activity, and it looked like he had finally withdrawn from public life. Now, however, following the controversial conclusion of Operation Protective Edge and the ongoing political vacuum, reflected by the absence of any political alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Barak may have identified an opening for a comeback.

The event took place at Barak’s home in the center of Tel Aviv. It was organized by Yossi Shriqui, former head of the Labor Party branch in the southern town of Netivot, and someone who has been identified with Barak ever since he first entered politics in the early 1990s. Also at the meeting was Pini Kabalo, the chairman of the Labor Party in the Labor Union, considered to be one of the party’s main field operatives.

The conversation which took place was political in essence, focusing to a large degree on the implication of the last conflict in the Gaza Strip. Barak left the participants with the impression that he doesn’t see anyone from the political center and left who can pose a real challenge to a Likud government headed by Netanyahu. He then hinted that only he and late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, both of them former chiefs of staff, were able to get voters on the right to support the left, thereby defeating the Likud and bringing the Labor Party to power.