Yair Golan
On the morning of the October 7 massacre, Yair Golan picked up his weapon, got in his car, and sped south to rescue dozens of Supernova music festival-goers targeted by Hamas gunmen.
Since then, he has made it his mission to unite Israel’s fractured Left.
After taking over from Merav Michaeli as Labor leader in 2024, Golan sought to revive a flailing Israeli Left, diminished further after Meretz failed to cross the electoral threshold in the 2022 election, and wounded by a Labor Party that fell to a record-low four seats in the 25th Knesset.
Golan’s answer was to rebrand the struggling Labor Party as the Democrats. The former IDF deputy chief of staff, who served under Gadi Eisenkot, vowed to prevent another split on the Left, quickly securing a merger with Meretz for the upcoming October 27 election.
Golan, who has historically supported a two-state solution, has adopted a more balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, arguing that the approach taken on the matter should be more nuanced in a post-October 7 world. Under his leadership, the Democrats committed to a list incorporating gender parity through a zipper system – in which the list must switch back and forth between a candidate of one gender and a candidate of the other – while also guaranteeing representation for the rural sector and minority communities, including an Arab candidate, in a realistic slot.
Golan is notably one of the only party leaders in the opposition bloc that has actively called to form a coalition with the Arab parties.
Gilad Kariv
While Golan focused on reshaping Israel’s only left-wing party, MK Gilad Kariv emerged as the Democrats’ leading and most vocal presence in the Knesset.
As a member of the Knesset’s National Security Committee, Kariv led the opposition’s parliamentary fight against National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s death penalty bill, filing a High Court petition against what he called an “immoral” and “disgraceful” law.
As chairman of the Aliyah, Integration, and Diaspora Affairs Committee, Kariv convened the panel more than a dozen times in an effort to push police action to locate nine-year-old Haymanot Kasau, who has been missing since 2024, frequently clashing with the national security minister in the process.
Advocating for the unconditional release of all Gaza hostages, Kariv regularly attended protests alongside hostage families and his fellow Democrats lawmakers, often calling for a ceasefire deal and asserting Israel’s “national and moral responsibility” to return all hostages to their families.
Kariv has also repeatedly warned Israel’s government over inaction he said was leading to a “tsunami” of emigration from the country. “To all the Israelis who left the country, the fix is on the way,” he said. “And we need you with us to bring it.”
The party held its primaries in July to decide its Knesset slate ahead of the election, drawing more than 114,000 voters, in what Golan hailed as an “unprecedented democratic surge.”
Having revived and united the Left, Golan and Kariv now face the tall task of turning that resurgence into political power, putting their policies at the forefront of Israel’s next coalition – and returning to the decision-makers’ table.
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