ON JULY 10th Israel’s Labour Party elected as leader one of its newest members: Avi Gabbay, who joined only six months ago. He represents a leap into the unknown for Labour, which was once Israel’s party of government but has not been in power for 16 years. It has changed leaders eight times since then.

Mr Gabbay is the former chief executive of Bezek, Israel’s largest telecoms firm. He entered politics in 2014, helping to found Kulanu, a centrist party, and served for a year as environment minister (though he failed to be elected to parliament). He resigned in May 2016, denouncing the coalition’s rightward shift, and joined Labour. Last week he came second in the first round of its leadership election, beating Isaac Herzog, the leader for the past four years, into third place. In the second round he overcame another ex-leader, Amir Peretz, a trade unionist who ran on a resolutely left-wing platform and enjoyed the support of much of the party establishment.

At the election in 2015 Labour won only 24 seats in the 120-member Knesset. It has since slid to fourth place in the polls, losing half its support to Yesh Atid, another centrist party, which is led by a former chat-show host. Mr Gabbay’s priority will be to draw these voters back, re-establishing Labour as the main party of the centre-left. That, however, will not be enough. To win power, he must splinter the right-wing and religious bloc of parties that has backed the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu of the Likud party, for the past eight years.

In electing Mr Gabbay, Labour members are pinning their hopes on a centrist without much political experience who until recently was almost unknown outside business circles. On paper at least, he looks like a candidate who can connect with sections of the Israeli public that have long deserted Labour. Born in a working-class neighbourhood of Jerusalem to parents who emigrated from Morocco in 1964, he served as an officer in an elite intelligence unit and then worked in the finance ministry’s powerful budget department before joining the private sector. His Likud-voting family are just the kind of voters Labour must attract.

But although he has the freshness of a newcomer, Mr Gabbay has yet to prove he has the stamina or skill to take on the prime minister. In a victory speech made in crumpled shirtsleeves, he delivered no clear message. His only memorable soundbite was that Israel’s government should “take care of Dimona, not only Amona”, referring to a hardscrabble town in the Negev Desert and a tiny illegal settler outpost which Mr Netanyahu is spending millions to relocate.

He may receive help from another quarter, though. On the day the second round of Labour voting was taking place, police detained for questioning six men suspected of involvement in a bribery scandal connected to an order for German submarines. They include Mr Netanyahu’s former pick for head of the National Security Council and his personal attorney. The prime minister is not a suspect, but he is the subject of two other investigations. Even if Mr Netanyahu is brought down by his legal troubles, he is likely to be replaced by another Likudnik. Mr Gabbay is a long way from the top job.