Itzik Shmuli, former Labor minister, spent ten years climbing up the Israeli political ladder before ending it at the March 2021 elections, explaining that he made a mistake joining then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
Shmuli was one of the heads of the National Union of Israeli Students in 2011 when he was drafted to run for Knesset in the 2013 election by the then-Labor head.
He joined Netanyahu's government with then-Labor header Amir Peretz, opposing Merav Michaeli, who took the helm of the party and passed a proposal removing the party from the government and demanding the removal of Peretz and Shmuli.
On February 3, 2021, just over a month before the elections that called Naftali Bennett victor, Shmuli announced that he would be taking a break from politics: "Leaders need to know to admit when they made a mistake and to take responsibility."
