La'am לע"ם | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Leader | Yigal Hurvitz Eliezer Shostak |
| Founded | 1976 |
| Dissolved | 1984 |
| Merger of | Independent Centre, theMovement for Greater Israel and theNational List |
| Merged into | Herut |
| Alliance | Likud |
| Colours | Green Orange |
| Most MKs | 8 (1976-1981) |
| Fewest MKs | 3 (1982-1983) |
La'am (Hebrew:לע"ם,lit. 'For the Nation', an abbreviation ofLikud Avoda Mamlakhtit) was a political faction inIsrael that formed part ofLikud between 1976 and 1984.
Between its formation in 1973 and formal merger in 1988, Likud consisted of an alliance of several right wing parties. The two largest blocs wereHerut and theLiberal Party, which had formed theGahal alliance between 1965 and 1973. In 1973 the two parties were joined by theFree Centre, theIndependent Centre (a breakaway from theFree Centre), theNational List and theMovement for Greater Israel.
In 1976, the latter three formed an alliance within the Likud bloc, named La'am,[1] which consisted of eight of Likud's 39 seats. In the1977 elections La'am remained at eight seats, with Likud growing to 43.
On 15 May 1979,Moshe Shamir, the Movement for Greater Israel representative, left Likud to sit as an independent,[2] later establishingTehiya withGeula Cohen. On 26 January 1981 three of its members,Yigal Hurvitz,Zalman Shoval andYitzhak Peretz, left Likud to re-establish theNational List as an independent party.[2] Hurvitz and Shoval left to formTelem, whilst Peretz returned to Likud and La'am.
La'am was reduced to five seats from Likud's 48 in theJune 1981 elections, following disputes within Likud about the number of seats allocated to each faction in which many Herut members felt the Liberal Party and La'am were over-represented.[3] On 26 October 1982 it was reduced to three seats asAmnon Linn and Peretz defected to theAlignment.[2] However, it gained an extra MK whenAvraham Hirschson replaced Liberal faction memberSimha Erlich. In 1984, as part of a move to consolidate Likud, La'am merged into Herut. Four years later the Liberal Party and Herut formally merged to leave Likud as a unitary party.
| Knesset | Members |
|---|---|
| 8 (1976-1977) 8 seats | Yigal Cohen,Yigal Hurvitz,Amnon Linn,Ehud Olmert,Yitzhak Peretz,Eliezer Shostak,Zalman Shoval,Avraham Yafeh |
| 9 (1977-1981) 8 seats | Yigal Cohen,Yigal Hurvitz,[a]Amnon Linn,Ehud Olmert,Yitzhak Peretz,[b]Moshe Shamir,Eliezer Shostak,Zalman Shoval[a] |
| 10 (1981-1984) 5 seats | Yigal Cohen,Avraham Hirschson,[c]Amnon Linn,[a]Ehud Olmert,Yitzhak Peretz,[a]Eliezer Shostak, |