Labor (Israel)

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Ha‘Avoda - Israel Labor Party
Image:Labour (Israel).png
Founded Descended from parties founded in the 1930s. Assumed its current name 1968
Leader Amir Peretz
Number of MPs at height of power 57 (1969 elections)
Political ideology Social Democracy
International Affiliation Socialist International
European affiliation Party of European Socialists (observer)
Headquarters Tel Aviv
Colour(s) Red
Website www.avoda.org.il
See also the Politics of Israel series
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The Israel Labor Party (Hebrew: העבודה, Ha‘Avoda (Labor), officially מפלגת העבודה הישראלית, Mifleget Ha‘Avoda HaIsra’elit) is a center-left political party in Israel. It is a social democratic and Zionist party, a member of the Socialist International and an observer member of the Party of European Socialists.

Contents

[edit] Other names for the party

Reflecting the transient nature of Israeli politics, since its inception the party has gone under a variety of names, including:

  • Poale Zion (Hebrew: פועלי ציון, Zion's Workers)
  • Mapai (Hebrew: מפא"י, The Party of the Workers of the Land of Israel), 1930-1968
  • HaMa`arakh (Hebrew: המערך, The Alignment - a union of Mapai and Mapam)
  • HaAvoda (Hebrew: העבודה, Labor)
  • Yisra'el Ahat (Hebrew: ישראל אחת, One Israel - a union with Gesher and Meimad), 1999-2001


[edit] History

Mapai (Mifleget Poalei Eretz Israel — "Land of Israel Worker's Party") was a Labor Zionist party founded in the 1930s as the right wing (or more moderate) faction of the Zionist socialist Russian party Poale Zion. In the early 1920s the Labor Zionist movement founded the Histadrut ("General Hebrew Workers' Union") which dominated the Hebrew settlement economy and infrastructure, later making Mapai the dominant political faction in the Zionist politics. It is also responsible for the founding of Hashomer and Haganah, the first two armed Jewish groups who secured the people and property of new and emerging Jewish communities.

By the early 1930s, the workers' leader David Ben-Gurion rose to power and led Mapai for almost two decades before he retired to Sde Boker in order to develop the Negev desert. Under Ben-Gurion's leadership Mapai became the leading party in the Hebrew parliament and Ben-Gurion led the Hebrew settlement in its struggle for independence. Ben-Gurion declared Israel's independence and was elected to be its first prime minister.

In 1965 Mapai joined with Labour Unity to form the "Labor Alignment". The "Labor Alignment" was a united list of two parties which are not united. In 1968 the two parties merged with Rafi, a splinter group of Ben-Gurion supporters who had left Mapai a few years earlier, to form the Mifleget Ha-Avodah Ha-Yisraelit (the "Israeli Labor Party"). In 1969 the new party formed an electoral coalition with Mapam which became the second Labor Alignment and continued to dominate the government.

Until 1977, all the prime ministers were from the Mapai/ILP. The greatest opposition to the ILP was Menachem Begin's Herut (which eventually became part of the Likud bloc) - the right wing liberal party. In 1977, following Yitzhak Rabin resignation from office, the ILP lost in the elections to Begin.

In 1984, as a result of an electoral stalemate in which neither Labor nor Likud was able to form a stable coalition, the two parties led by Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir respectively formed a national unity government with the prime ministership rotating between the two party leaders. Mapam rejected this arrangement and left the Labor Alignment to join the parliamentary opposition. The national unity government fell in 1990 following a failing political scam of Peres and Shas leader Aryeh Deri.

In 1992, the ILP won the election and Yitzhak Rabin was elected as prime minister. During his term, he signed a peace treaty with Jordan and ran the Oslo process. Opposition to the Oslo process eventually led to Rabin's assassination by a right-wing extremist, Yigal Amir. Shimon Peres replaced Rabin until 1996, when he lost in the elections to Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu following a wave of suicide bombings by Palestinian terror group Hamas.

In 1999, Ehud Barak beat Shimon Peres and became the leader of the party and its candidate for Prime minister. In these elections Israelis voted twice - once for the Knesset and once for Prime Minister. Ehud Barak created "One Israel" (ישראל אחת) - a joint list of the Labor, David Levy's Gesher and the religious Zionist Meimad. Barak's campaign was focusing on social and economical issues, and his reputation as a "not-politician" and "not-passing-screen" helped him to overcome and replace in office Likud's charismatic candidate Benjamin Netanyahu.

However, Ehud Barak's tenure was short. He started by forming a 75-member coalition of Israel-One (26), Shas (17), Meretz (10), Israel-BaAliya (5), Mafdal (5) and United Torah Judaism (5). The coalition with religious right wing parties such as Mafdal, Shas and United Torah Judaism caused tensions with leftist and secularist Meretz. Meretz was the first to quit the coalition after a fight with Shas over the authority of the Deputy Education Minister. The rest of the parties left before the Camp David 2000 summit in the summer. Following the October 2000 riots and the violence of the al-Aqsa Intifada, Barak resigned from office and was replaced by Ariel Sharon in 2001 (the elections were only for prime-minister).

Ariel Sharon formed a unity government with Likud, Labor, Shas, Israel-BaAliya and United Torah Judaism. Labor got two important cabinet portfolios: Shimon Peres was appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Benjanin Ben-Eliezer was appointed as Defense Minister. Labor supported Operation Defensive Shield, which was conducted in April 2002 against Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank. After harsh criticism that Peres and Ben-Elizer were "puppets" of Sharon and not promoting the peace process, Labor quit the government in 2003.

[edit] Current status

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In 2003, general elections were held for the sixteenth Knesset. Likud won 40 seats, while the united list of Labor and Meimad - led by former General and Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna - won only 19. This was considered a blow to the "Old Lady" of Israeli politics. Mitzna resigned and Shimon Peres returned as party leader. Subsequently, Labor agreed to merge with the Am Ehad workers' party, which held 3 seats. Although Am Ehad had little influence in the Knesset, it was an important party because its leader, Amir Peretz, was also the chairman of the Histadrut - the strongest Workers' Union in Israel, founded by Mapai.

In December 2004 Labor joined Ariel Sharon's Likud to form a unity government in order to implement Israel's disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip. On 8 November 2005 Shimon Peres was replaced as the leader of the Labor party by the election of left-wing Histadrut union leader Amir Peretz in an internal Labor party ballot. Peretz stated his intention to reassert Labor’s traditional socialist policies and took Labor party out of the government, prompting Sharon to resign and call for new elections in March 2006. At those elections, the party placed second with 20 seats, a loss of 2 from the election previous.

[edit] Ideology

[edit] Past

Mapai evolved from the Socialist "Workers of Zion" party and adhered to the Zionist Socialist ideology promulgated by Nahum Syrkin and Ber Borochov. During Ben-Gurion's leadership (1930s-1950s) Mapai focused mainly on the Zionist agenda, since it was the most urgent issue then - establishing a national homeland for Jews.

After the founding of the state of Israel, Mapai engaged in nation building - the establishment of the Israel Defense Forces (while dismantling every other armed group), the establishment of many settlements, the settling of more than 1,000,000 Jewish immigrants and the desire to unite all the inhabitants of Israel under a new Zionist Jewish Israeli culture (an ideology known as the "Melting pot" כור היתוך).

Labor in the past was even more hawkish on security and defense issues than it is today. During its years in office, Israel has fought the 1956 Sinai War, the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

[edit] Current

In recent years (up until 2005), the ILP became a centrist party. It was no longer considered socialist or social democratic (though it retained membership in the Socialist International) but had a social-liberal platform, similar to the third-way of British Labour under Tony Blair. Economic policies in Israel being seldom hotly debated even within the major parties, actual policies depended much more on initiative by the civil service than on political ideologies. Therefore, Labor's terms in office during this period did not differ significantly in terms of economic policy from those of its rival.

On the question of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Labor party has three competing attitudes. Dovish members, such as Amram Mitzna, Avraham Burg, and Yuli Tamir, support peace negotiations with the Palestinians and dismantling most Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Some of them harshly criticize Israel's military tactics used against Palestinians - mainly the "targeted killing" of alleged terror leaders.

Semi-pragmatic ILP members, such as Ophir Pines-Paz and Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, support negotiations with the Palestinians conditional on ending terrorism and replacing the current Palestinian leadership with one committed to non-violence. Other semi-pragmatic ILP members support unilateral withdrawal from areas in the West Bank beyond the Israeli West Bank barrier.

The pragmatic ILP members support Israel's military war against Palestinian terror groups. These members justify Israel's policy of targeting terror leader such as Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantissi. Many of these members have now merged with the moderate wing of the Likud to form the centrist Kadima Party, with the understanding that a Kadima government will promote the peace process and the dismantling of settlements.

In 2003, the ILP experienced a small split when former members Yossi Beilin and Yael Dayan joined Yachad to form a new left wing party.

In November 2005, Amir Peretz, leader of the social democratic Am Ehad which had merged into the ILP, was elected chairman of the party, defeating Shimon Peres. Under Peretz, and especially in the 2006 electoral campaign, the party took a significant ideological turn, putting social and economic issues on top of its agenda, and advocating a moderate social democratic approach (including increases in minimum wage and social security payments), in sharp contrast to the neo-liberal policies led by former Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

In 2006, several members of the ILP left to join the new centrist grouping of the Kadima Party; these included former Labor leader Shimon Peres, Haim Ramon, and Dalia Itzik.

The party's new leader, Amir Peretz, has sent out rather mixed signals during the early parts of the 2006 electoral campaign. On the one hand, he notably said that "the Oslo way is not dead"; on the other hand, he expressed a commitment to fighting terrorism and keeping the integrity of united Jerusalem.

[edit] Labor Party leaders, 1948-present

[edit] Other prominent members

Prominent former members include:

[edit] Delegates in 17th Knesset

  1. Amir Peretz (slot reserved for ILP Chairman)
  2. Yitzhak Herzog
  3. Ophir Pines-Paz
  4. Avishai Braverman (former president of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
  5. Yuli Tamir (slot reserved for women)
  6. Ami Ayalon (former head of Shabak)
  7. Eitan Kabel (slot reserved for ILP General Secretary)
  8. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
  9. Shelli Yehimovich (slot reserved for women)
  10. Michael Melchior (slot reserved for Meimad)
  11. Matan Vilnai
  12. Colette Avital (slot reserved for women)
  13. Efraim Sneh
  14. Dani Yatom
  15. Nadyah Hilo (slot reserved for women)
  16. Shalom Simhon (slot reserved for Moshavim)
  17. Orit Noked (slot reserved for Kibbutzim)
  18. Yoram Marciano (slot reserved for poor neighbourhoods)
  19. Ghalib al-Majadlah (slot reserved for Arab sector)


[edit] Related article

[edit] External links

bg:Израелска партия на труда de:Awoda es:Partido Laborista Israelí fr:Parti travailliste (Israël) gl:Partido Laborista de Israel he:מפלגת העבודה הישראלית nl:Israëlische Partij van de Arbeid ja:労働党 (イスラエル) no:Arbeiderpartiet (Israel) nn:Avoda pl:Izraelska Partia Pracy pt:Partido Trabalhista (Israel) ru:Авода sv:Arbetarpartiet (Israel) zh:以色列工党

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