Meretz מרצ | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founders | Shulamit Aloni Yair Tzaban Amnon Rubinstein |
| Founded | 1992 (alliance) 1997 (single party) |
| Dissolved | 12 July 2024 (2024-07-12) (de facto) |
| Merger of | Ratz Mapam Shinui |
| Merged into | The Democrats |
| Headquarters | Tel Aviv |
| Youth wing | Meretz Youth |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| National affiliation | Democratic Union (2019–2020) Labor-Gesher-Meretz (2020) |
| European affiliation | Party of European Socialists (observer)[3] |
| International affiliation | Progressive Alliance[4] Socialist International[5] |
| Colours | Green |
| Most MKs | 12 (1992–1996) |
| Fewest MKs | 0 (2022–2024) |
| Election symbol | |
| מרצ مرص [6] | |
| Party flag | |
 | |
| Website | |
meretz | |
Meretz (Hebrew:מֶרֶצ,lit. 'Vigour',[7]Arabic:ميرتس)[8] was aleft-wingpolitical party in Israel. The party was formed in 1992 by the merger ofRatz,Mapam andShinui, and was at its peak between 1992 and 1996 when it had 12 seats. It had no seats in theKnesset following its failure to pass theelectoral threshold in the2022 elections, the only time it failed to win seats in the Knesset.
Meretz was asocial-democratic andsecular party emphasising atwo-state solution to theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict, social justice, human rights (especially for religious, ethnic and sexual minorities), religious freedom and environmentalism.[9] The party was a member of theProgressive Alliance andSocialist International, and was an observer member of theParty of European Socialists. The party's position onZionism was disputed.[10][11]
On 30 June 2024 the party agreed to merge with theIsraeli Labor Party to form a new party,the Democrats. Under the merger agreement, there will be one Meretz representative in every four spots on the new party's electoral list as well as on the party bodies, and there will also be representation for Meretz's municipal factions.[12] The agreement was ratified at a convention of delegates from both Meretz and Labor on 12 July 2024. Under the agreement, Meretz and Labor continue as separate corporate and budgetary entities, and their factions in theHistadrut, municipal councils and other bodies outside the Knesset will not be unified at this stage but will cooperate.[13]
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Meretz was formed prior to the1992 Israeli legislative election by an alliance of threeleft-wing political parties,Ratz,Mapam andShinui, and was initially led by Ratz's chairwoman and long-timeKnesset memberShulamit Aloni. The name "Meretz" (מרצ) was chosen as anacronym for Mapam (מפ"ם) and Ratz (רצ). The third party of the alliance was not reflected in its name, but was instead mentioned in the party's campaign slogan: "ממשלה עםמרצ, הכוח לעשות את השינוי" (A government withvigor[Meretz], the strength to make thechange [Shinui]). Its first electoral test was a success, with the party winning twelve seats, making it the third-largest in the Knesset. Meretz became the major coalition partner ofYitzhak Rabin'sLabor Party, helping pave the way for theOslo Accords. The party also picked up several ministerial portfolios; Aloni was made Minister of Education, though disputes over the role of religion in education meant she was moved out of the education ministry to becomeMinister Without Portfolio in May 1993.[citation needed] In June 1993, she becameMinister of Communications andMinister of Science and Technology, a portfolio that was later renamed Minister of Science and the Arts.Amnon Rubinstein became Minister of Energy and Infrastructure and Minister of Science and Technology, and laterMinister of Education, Culture and Sport, whilstYossi Sarid was named Minister of the Environment andYair Tzaban was namedMinister of Immigrant Absorption.
After the1996 elections, in which Meretz lost a quarter of its seats, Aloni lost an internal leadership election to Yossi Sarid and retired, and the three parties decided to officially merge into a single entity by 1997. Although Shinui leaderAmnon Rubinstein supported the merger, most Shinui members rejected it; once the merger became effective, part of Shinui (under the leadership of Rubinstein) broke away to participate in the merger, while the party mainstream electedAvraham Poraz as the new party leader and re-established Shinui as an independent movement. Later in the Knesset session,David Zucker also left the party to sit as an independent MK.
The 1999 Meretz leadership election sawYossi Sarid reelected as party leader. The election was held through a vote of delegates to the party's convention.[14] The vote took place in advance of the1999 Knesset election.
The1999 elections saw the party regain its former strength, picking up 10 seats, including the first-ever femaleIsraeli Arab MK,Hussniya Jabara, while Shinui (now effectively led by TV celebrity journalistTommy Lapid, although Poraz remained its formal leader) won six seats. Meretz was invited intoEhud Barak's coalition, with Sarid becoming Education Minister,Ran CohenMinister of Industry and Trade andHaim OronMinister of Agriculture and Rural Development. However, afterLikud leaderAriel Sharon defeated Barak in a specialPrime Ministerial election in 2001, Meretz left the government.
On 22 October 2002, Meretz MKUzi Even made history by becoming the first openlygay Member of Knesset, after Amnon Rubinstein retired. This created a vacancy and Even was next on the Meretz list. His term lasted less than three months, however, as the Knesset was dissolved in January 2003. Even's entry to the Knesset was met by mixed reactions from theultra-Orthodox parties;Shas'sNissim Ze'ev was the harshest, saying Even "symbolized the bestialization of humanity", adding that he should be "hidden under the carpet" and banned from entering the Knesset.[15]
For the2003 elections, Meretz were joined byRoman Bronfman'sDemocratic Choice. However, the party shrank in representation again, this time to just six seats. Sarid immediately took responsibility and resigned from leadership, though he did not retire from the Knesset and continued serving as an MK, before stepping down before the2006 elections.
In December 2003, Meretz was disbanded, to merge withYossi Beilin's non-parliamentary Shahar (שח"ר) movement. The original name suggested for the new party wasYa'ad (יעד,Goal), but was not used because it sounded like theRussian word for poison ("yad"), and it was feared that it might alienate Israel's one million Russian-speaking voters (although there had been two parties previously in Israel using the name –Ya'ad andYa'ad – Civil Rights Movement, the latter ironically a forerunner of Meretz, they both existed before large-scale immigration from the Soviet Union). Instead, the nameYachad (Hebrew: יח"ד) was chosen. As well as meaning "Together", it is also a Hebrew acronym forSocial-Democratic Israel (Hebrew:ישראל חברתית דמוקרטית,Yisrael Hevratit Demokratit).
The new party was established to unite and resuscitate the Israeli Zionist peace camp, which had been soundly defeated in the 2003 elections (dropping from 56 Knesset members in 1992 to 24 in 2003) following theAl-Aqsa Intifada.[citation needed] The party's purpose was to unite a variety of dovish Zionist movements with the dovish wing of the Labor Party. However, the efforts were largely unsuccessful as, except for the original Meretz, Shahar and Democratic Choice, no other movement joined the new party.[citation needed] It has suffered from declining popular interest in left-wing peace movements, and only 20,000 people are now registered members of the party, half the number who were before the 1999 party primaries.[citation needed]
In March 2004, Yossi Beilin was elected party leader, defeating Ran Cohen, and started a two-year term as the first chairman of Yachad. In July 2005, the party decided to change its name to Meretz-Yachad, because opinion polls revealed that the nameYachad was not recognisable to the Israeli public and that they preferred the old nameMeretz. The chairman Beilin opposed the motion to revert the name to Meretz and a compromise between the old and new names,Meretz-Yachad, was agreed upon.
However, in the 2006 election campaign, the party dropped theYachad part of its name, running as justMeretz, under the slogan "Meretz on the left, the Human in the centre". Nevertheless, it failed to stop the party's decline, as they won just five seats. In 2007,Tzvia Greenfield, sixth on the party list, became the first-ever femaleultra-Orthodox Knesset member, following Yossi Beilin's decision to retire from politics.
In March 2008, internal elections for the chairman of the party were held. At an early stage, Yossi Beilin,Zehava Galon and Ran Cohen announced their bids. After Haim Oron announced his bid in December 2007, Beilin withdrew his bid and announced his support for him. Oron went on to win the internal elections held on 18 March 2008 with 54.5% of the vote, defeating Ran Cohen (27.1%) and Zehava Galon (18.1%) to become Meretz's new chairman.[16]
On 22 December 2008, Meretz finalized its merger with Hatnua HaHadasha ("The New Movement") for the2009 Israeli elections.[17]
The joint Meretz–Hatnua HaHadasha list ended up winning only three seats in the election. This electoral loss was largely attributed to traditionally left-wing voters choosing to strategically vote forKadima, in an effort to getTzipi Livni to head the next government, instead ofBenjamin Netanyahu ofLikud.[18]
Following the party's failure in the 2009 legislative elections,[19] some of the party members called for the resignation of the party chairman Haim Oron and to give way for Zehava Galon. Haim Oron indeed left the Knesset on 23 March 2011[20] and later left the chairmanship of the party. As a result, MKsZehava Galon,Ilan Gilon, and youth activist Ori Ophir began campaigning to win the position of party chairman.[21] The primaries were held on 7 February 2012 for the position of the party's chairman; Gal-On was elected as the chairman with 60.6% of the votes, whilst Ilan Gilon was second with 36.6%, and Uri Ofir was third with 2.8%.
In the2013 legislative election, Meretz received 4.5% of the national vote, winning six seats.[22] On 8 December 2014, Meretz signed a surplus-vote agreement with the Labor Party for the upcoming2015 legislative election,[23] the latter set to contest the election as theZionist Union. On 19 January 2015, Meretz held its primaries at a meeting of its 1,000-member central committee in theTel Aviv Convention Center: Zehava Galon was re-elected party leader, whilst MKNitzan Horowitz chose not to stand for re-election.[24]
In2015, as preliminary results of the Knesset elections indicated that the party representation would be reduced, Zehava Galon announced that she would resign as chairperson of Meretz as soon as a successor was chosen, and from the Knesset, in order to open a place forTamar Zandberg, the party's fifth place-candidate who appeared to have lost her seat. Zandberg,Ilan Gilon, and others urged Gal-On to reconsider her decision.[25] However, once absentee and soldier ballots were counted, Meretz gained a fifth seat, negating the premise for Gal-On's earlier announcement,[26] and she announced that she would continue as party leader,[27] saying: "Meretz received a fifth seat from young supporters, from Israeli soldiers, who raised the party's rate of support. That allowed Meretz to maintain its strength in terms of the number of voters – some 170,000 – compared with the last election. Under the circumstances, and against all odds, that is a success."[28]
Tamar Zandberg became the leader of Meretz in2018. In February 2019, Meretz held its first-ever open primary contest. Eighty-six percent of party members cast votes. Ilan Gilon won first place; he will be placed second on the party's Knesset slate, behind party leader Tamar Zandberg.Michal Rozin came in second place, followed byIssawi Frej and Ali Salalha.[29] In theApril 2019 elections, the party won four seats.
In July 2019, Meretz agreed to form an electoral union, called theDemocratic Union, withEhud Barak'sIsrael Democratic Party and breakaway Labor MKStav Shaffir for theSeptember elections,[30] a decision ratified on 29 July.[31] The alliance won five seats, three of them going to Meretz. Prior to theMarch 2020 elections, the party joined an alliance withLabor andGesher, which won seven seats, three of them held by Meretz.
After winning six seats in theMarch 2021 elections, Meretz joined acoalition government alongsideYesh Atid,Blue and White,Yamina, the Labor Party,Yisrael Beiteinu,New Hope and theUnited Arab List.[32] Three Meretz MKs became ministers, with Horowitz becoming Minister of Health, Zandberg Minister of Environmental Protection andIssawi Frej Minister of Regional Cooperation. This is the first time Meretz has returned to government since 2000.
The party did not win any seats in the2022 elections under the leadership of returning chairwomanZehava Galon, missing theelectoral threshold by 3,800 votes, marking the first time that the party did not retain Knesset seats in an election.[33] The party's local candidates reportedly struggled financially since the 2022 election, owing to the party's lack of representation in the Knesset.[34]
Meretz was positioned on theleft-wing on the political spectrum.[35][36][37] It was asocial-democratic,[38][39] andLeft Zionist party,[40] that supportedgreen politics,[41][42]progressive andegalitarian policies,[43][44] andsecularism.[1][2] The party also supports atwo-state solution.[45]
In addition to being a full member ofSocialist International and theProgressive Alliance, it participated inGlobal Greens conferences.[46] In the international media, Meretz was described as left-wing, social-democratic,dovish,secular,civil libertarian and anti-occupation.[47][48][49][50]
Meretz protested against the 2018Nation-State Bill and petitioned theSupreme Court of Israel to invalidate the legislation, arguing it was discriminatory against Arabs and the Druze.[51]
The party emphasised the following principles (not necessarily in order of importance):
| Leader | Took office | Left office | Knesset elections | Elected/re-elected as leader | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Shulamit Aloni | 1992 | 1996 | 1992 | |
| 2 |  | Yossi Sarid | 1996 | 2003 | 1996,1999,2003 | 1996,1999 |
| 3 |  | Yossi Beilin | 2004 | 2008 | 2006 | 2004[14] |
| 4 |  | Haim Oron | 2008 | 2012 | 2009 | 2008[53] |
| 5 | .jpg) | Zehava Galon | 2012 | 2018 | 2013,2015 | 2012,2015 |
| 6 |  | Tamar Zandberg | 2018 | 2019 | 2019 (Apr) | 2018 |
| 7 |  | Nitzan Horowitz | 2019 | 2022 | 2019 (Sep),2020,2021 | 2019 |
| (5) | | Zehava Galon | 2022 | 2022 | 2022 | 2022 |
Shulamit Aloni became the party's leader in 1992 not by a formal leadership election, but instead by a consensus of the party's founding leaders. After her 1996 retirement as leader, the party heldits 1996 leadership election, for which the electorate was the membership of its Party Council. The party's1999 leadership election saw a broader electorate, with the delegates of the Party Convention voting for its leader. In the2004 leadership election, the party again expanded its leadership election electorate, opening the leadership vote up to the party's general membership. More than 15,000 party members participated in this leadership election.[14] The2012 leadership election saw a return to limiting the elecotrate to party convention delegates.[54] In the2018 leadership election, voting was re-opened to the party's general membership,[55] before being closed for the2019 leadership election,[56] and later re-opened in2022.[57]
| Election | Leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Shulamit Aloni | 250,667 | 9.58 (#3) | 12 / 120 |  2 | Coalition |
| 1996 | Yossi Sarid | 226,275 | 7.41 (#5) | 9 / 120 |  3 | Opposition |
| 1999 | 253,525 | 7.66 (#4) | 10 / 120 | 1 | Coalition(1999–2000) | |
| Opposition(2000–2003) | ||||||
| 2003 | 164,122 | 5.21 (#6) | 6 / 120 | 4 | Opposition | |
| 2006 | Yossi Beilin | 118,302 | 3.77 (#9) | 5 / 120 | 1 | Opposition |
| 2009 | Haim Oron | 99,611 | 2.95 (#10) | 3 / 120 | 2 | Opposition |
| 2013 | Zehava Galon | 172,403 | 4.55 (#8) | 6 / 120 | 3 | Opposition |
| 2015 | 165,529 | 3.93 (#10) | 5 / 120 | 1 | Opposition | |
| Apr 2019 | Tamar Zandberg | 156,473 | 3.63 (#9) | 4 / 120 | 1 | Snap election |
| Sep 2019 | Nitzan Horowitz | Part of theDemocratic Union | 3 / 120 | 1 | Snap election | |
| 2020 | WithLabor andGesher[a] | 3 / 120 |  | Opposition | ||
| 2021 | 202,218 | 4.59 (#12) | 6 / 120 | 3 | Coalition | |
| 2022 | Zehava Galon | 150,793 | 3.16 (#11) | 0 / 120 | 6 | Extra-parliamentary |
Several left-wing Zionist organizations that shared many of the ideas of Meretz are affiliated with the Israel-based World Union of Meretz, which is an umbrella group for organizations in Jewish communities around the world that were linked to the Meretz party. The WUM is a faction within theWorld Zionist Organization and is part of the World Zionist Union made up of theLabor Zionist Movement,Arzenu, and the World Union of Meretz, and sends delegates to theWorld Zionist Congress.[58] WUM affiliates include the London-based Meretz UK, France's Cercle Bernard Lazare and the USA'sPartners for Progressive Israel. The World Union of Meretz has representation in other organizations, including theJewish National Fund and theZionist General Council.
Hashomer Hatzair, aprogressive Zionist youth movement with branches in many countries, was informally associated with Meretz; it had previously been affiliated withMapam.
American Jewish comedianSarah Silverman, whose sisterSusan moved from the US to Israel and is a Reform rabbi there, asked Israeli voters to choose Meretz in the2015 election.[59][60]
In October 2024 the US affiliate of the World Union of Meretz,Partners for Progressive Israel, was the first Zionist group in the United States to call on the United States government to suspend its sale of offensive arms to Israel, calling on the American government to redirect its aid to Israel to peacebuilding efforts.[61]
Late last month, news broke in Israel that the party had deleted any reference to Zionism from its platform, perhaps as early as 2009. Subsequent attempts by reporters to ascertain whether the party still considers itself Zionist—the very question would've seemed absurd to any of us young political animals in the early 1990s—revealed organizational and ideological chaos. The party's head, Zehava Galon, said Meretz remained as committed as ever to Zionism. Her spokeswoman, May Ossi, said the exact opposite: 'Meretz,' she told Haaretz, 'is a non-Zionist Israeli political party, the party of all citizens because the very idea of Zionism necessarily erases an entire other people.' Mossi Raz, the party's secretary-general, claimed that Meretz had never defined itself as a Zionist party
The reactions issued by various senior Meretz figures were inconsistent. Here's a sample: 'Meretz is a non-Zionist Israeli party belonging to all citizens;' 'Meretz is Zionist, while it has non-Zionist members;' 'Meretz has never been defined as a Zionist party;' 'We are an integral part of the Zionist system;' and 'Meretz is a Zionist left party, an Israeli party with Jewish and Arab members.'
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