The marginalization and now the subsumption of Labor is a function, first and foremost, of middle Israel’s lost faith in the possibility of an accommodation with the Palestinians — a conclusion unsurprisingly drawn from that strategic onslaught of suicide bombers twenty years ago.

The final, broken representatives of David Ben-Gurion’s pioneering party are now to find themselves part of a government committed to the unilateral annexation of the settlements and the Jordan Valley — expediting not only the demise of Labor, but also, quite possibly, of the two-state solution for which the party stood

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While Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas has not directly orchestrated terrorism, his hierarchy has continued to demonize and incite against Israel. In that climate, and with Hamas intermittently reminding Israelis of the dangers of relinquishing territory, Labor has mustered no credible alternative approach, and no articulate counter, to Netanyahu and his insistence that Israel has no partner with whom to negotiate. And thus the final, broken representatives of David Ben-Gurion’s pioneering party are now to find themselves part of a government committed to the unilateral annexation of the settlements and the Jordan Valley — expediting not only the demise of Labor, but also, quite possibly, of the two-state solution for which the party stood.

Labor’s passing was hastened by the arrival of Benny Gantz, who pulled away much of its electorate in building the most potent alternative to Netanyahu in years, an alliance dominated by ex-IDF chiefs that challenged the Likud leader’s Mr. Security credentials.

Gantz has been excoriated by his abandoned partners Yair Lapid and Moshe Ya’alon for the staggering volte-face that saw him put aside the cardinal promise throughout three election campaigns not to sit in government with a prime minister under indictment who is battering away at Israel’s law enforcement hierarchies. But Labor’s volte-face, though far less significant given its now tiny voter base, is the more extreme and the more pathetic.