Histadrut chief Avi Nissenkorn joins Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party

Histadrut Labor Union chairman Avi Nissenkorn will be on Israel Resilience’s list for the next Knesset, the party announced Saturday evening.

Nissenkorn said he is leaving his post “with a heavy heart,” but said his priorities will remain the same.

“Israel is at a critical intersection,” Nissenkorn said. “[Israel Resilience leader] Benny Gantz must be the prime minister, and he will be excellent. He will put security first and bring a different leadership that will connect Israelis.”

Gantz called the union boss “a real asset on the way to victory and a change in priorities.”

According to Gantz, Nissenkorn’s role is central to the party, which “represents the middle class dealing with an all-devouring cost of living, long lines for health services and a resounding failure in the ability to get a roof over one’s head.”

Nissenkorn was reelected Histadrut chairman with 62% of the vote in 2017.

Gantz has already appointed several figures known for their social activism to his list, including former Yeroham mayor Michael Biton and former Jerusalem city councilwoman Meirav Cohen.

However, Nissenkorn is specifically identified with the economic Left, whereas the members of the Telem party, led by former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, on the Resilience list, are more to the Right.

One of them, a former cabinet secretary under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Zvi Hauser, said he is not on the economic Left.

“We want a broad tent,” Hauser said on Meet the Press.

The New Right Party said Nissenkorn in Resilience shows Gantz plans to put powerful unions ahead of everyone else.

“Instead of caring about the entire Israeli public and lowering the cost of living for the weaker sectors, Gantz is connecting with the strong unions,” a party spokesman said. “We can imagine what that will do to our electric bills, to the pensions of those who are well-connected, strikes in the ports, and the ability to change things in the civil service that so needs to be made more efficient.”

A Likud spokesman said that “after Gantz bankrupted the company he managed, he is adding the Histadrut chairman [to his party], who heads the strong unions in the Electric Corporation, the ports, the trains and the food companies, which are preventing competition and lowering prices in the market. Benny Gantz is the weak, bankrupt Left.”