The first meeting of the Zionist Camp Knesset faction took place May 4 in an especially large conference room in the Knesset building, one of the rewards of being the second-largest party in the legislature. While the meeting was in progress, however, Knesset member Shelly Yachimovich made the rounds of the various news shows, explaining why she had decided to skip the event. Of course she didn’t say so explicitly, but this was Yachimovich's opening salvo in the race to lead the Labor Party — the larger partner in the Zionist Camp — and in the struggle between her and Tzipi Livni, Zionist Camp co-leader and head of Hatnua, over who will be the top woman in that party. Thus the Labor Party proved itself yet again to be a serial eliminator of its leaders. This time, however, with the 2015 elections a mere few weeks in the past, the attempt at political elimination was faster and more pointed than usual.

During the first few moments of the meeting, in a room crammed with Knesset members, their aides and the requisite TV crews, the members of the Zionist Camp still had no idea that Yachimovich was preparing a little surprise for them. They certainly had no idea how much that surprise would contrast the festive nature of their inaugural meeting.

Timing her salvo to coincide with the event, Yachimovich sent text messages to political journalists announcing that she had no intention of accepting the joint leadership of Isaac Herzog and Livni over the Zionist Camp. She claimed that this hybrid leadership had been intended only for the election campaign. Once that campaign was over, she continued, an extension of the two-headed model would be “like castrating the opposition's leadership in advance, and such a move has no democratic, practical or ideological validity.”

Those with a sharp eye noticed that in her announcement, Yachimovich called Herzog by his nickname, Buji, not by his given name, Isaac. Yet it was his given name that Herzog and his staff made a point of using throughout the election campaign, as part of their attempt to create a more serious and respectable image for him. His rivals on the right chose to use his nickname during the campaign.