Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
United States at the time) became the new party leader. Rabin was not closely associated with
any of the three factions that made up Labor, and the other top slots in the party — defense
minister and foreign minister —went to Shimon Peres and Yigal Allon, respectively.
Despite internal reorganization, several factors — the 1973 war, allegations of corruption,
and tension with the religious parties — forced early elections in 1977. The results of those elec-
tions, which brought Likud to power, signaled the end of the left's three-decade-long reign and
marked a turning point in Israeli politics and history.
In the three decades following that watershed event, Labor's fortunes have been mixed. It
has won only a few elections but has served in the coalition government for about half of those
years. In 1984, Labor once again became the largest party in the Knesset, but it was unable to
form a coalition by itself, the same fate that befell Likud in 1988.
In 1992, to reverse Labor's fortunes and restore it to the power it once held, the party tried
to redefi ne itself by deemphasizing its connection with socialism, the kibbutz movement, and
the Histadrut labor union. With the more centrist and popular Rabin beating Shimon Peres
in the party primary, the party rebranded itself as “Labor Headed by Rabin” to attract voters.
The changes were effective, as was Labor's ability to appeal to new immigrants, and it won
the most seats in 1992. After Rabin's assassination, Peres again took over. While the earlier
reforms were kept, Peres lost the 1996 elections, for a variety of reasons, but his low per-
sonal popularity was clearly a factor, especially since the prime minister was elected directly
that year.
Since then, Labor's number of Knesset seats has steadily declined. In 1996 it gained thirty-
four seats, but the number fell to twenty-six in 1999, to an average of twenty in the 2003 and
2006 elections, to thirteen in 2009, and then down to eight after party leader Ehud Barak's
decision to quit the party with three other MKs in January 2011. Barak's decision left Labor
at a historic nadir, facing an uncertain future as a minor, second-tier presence on the Israeli
political stage.
What caused this decline? The main external factor was the failure of the peace process
in 2000. Labor had staked its reputation on the success of the peace process. The attempt to
achieve a full peace treaty with the Palestinians in exchange for major concessions was the cul-
mination of arguments the party had been making for the previous three decades.
Many of the causes of the decline can be traced to mistakes by the party's leadership. Sha-
ron's decision to create the Kadima Party came at the precise moment when the Labor Party
was in turmoil following Amir Peretz's purge of many from leadership positions (including
Peres) when he took power in 2005. Consequently, Kadima received several high-level Labor
defectors as well as the support of many of the party's voters.
A second internal problem was the party's lack of identity. Promoting socialism and what
used to be called Labor values was no longer viable in a much-changed Israeli society. Dovish
stances were not politically profi table after 2000. The party was not able to come up with a new
approach, and when it moved to the left, the decline became steeper.
Third, the party had weak leadership, especially compared with the giants of the past. Am-
ram Mitzna (2002 -2003) and Amir Peretz (2005 -2007) were poor party leaders; voters saw
