Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Israel's party system evolved from the world Zionist movement of the pre-state era. Many
contemporary parties —holding almost half the Knesset seats after the 2009 election — are in
fact descendants of Eastern European Zionist organizations that were part of the movement
and had their own newspapers, sports clubs, health insurance, youth movements, and labor
unions. The party system based on Zionism existed in full force until the 1970s, and remnants
of it still exist with party youth movements and some other institutions.
Jerusalem's main soccer team still bears the name Beitar, identifying it with the Likud, which
probably remains the political choice for most of its fans. The Tel Aviv teams in the Premier
League have parallel names: Hapoel (Labor), Maccabi (descended from centrist-liberal parties
that no longer exist), and Bnai Yehuda (Datim). Haifa's main team is also named Maccabi.
The Labor Party's predecessors in particular developed strong organizations that touched
the lives of most citizens. The main organizations include the Histadrut labor union, which
also controlled the biggest health-care fund, and most of the kibbutzim and cooperative
villages (moshavim). By the 1990s a combination of infl uences — consumerism, globaliza-
tion, a substantial immigrant infl ux, the growth of grassroots' volunteer groups, and rising
individualism — led to a decline in the strength of permanent party loyalties in general and the
prominence of party-controlled organizations in particular.
Still, political parties remain by far the main framework through which politics is con-
ducted in Israel, and loyalties are strong by the standards of comparable societies. The main
change in Israel has been that a fl oating vote actually exists; also, some historic Labor and
Likud voters switched to Kadima.
Left-of-Center Parties
The left side of the political spectrum among Jewish voters in Israel derives from the heritage
of the Labor Zionists, who coupled socialist ideology with Jewish nationalism. Two streams —
Mapai (ancestor of the Labor Party) and the further left Mapam (ancestor of Meretz)— defi ned
themselves against the anti-Zionist Communist and Bundist left of that era. It should be noted
that both Labor and Mapam and descendent parties have often elected Arab and Druze mem-
bers as candidates on their lists.
Labor
The Labor Party was formed as such in 1968, although it is basically the same party as the one
that ruled Israel during the previous two decades under the name Mapai. Its formation was fa-
cilitated by a sense of national unity following the Six-Day War in 1967. Although the left-wing
Mapam Party did not join Labor, it formed a joint electoral list with Labor for some years,
mostly between 1969 and 1991, known as the Labor Alignment. The early years of the Labor
Party were marked by tension between the old guard — exemplifi ed by Prime Minister Golda
Meir's reliance on her “kitchen cabinet”— and younger leaders.
The Labor Party began to change after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and the subsequent
inquiry (Agranat Commission) that judged the government's preparedness for the war harshly.
Meir and her associates stepped down. Yitzhak Rabin, a younger, native-born leader associated
with the 1967 victory in the Six-Day War but not the 1973 war (since he was ambassador to the
