Aryeh Eliav, a former leader of the Sheli Party and a former Secretary General of the Labor Party, announced the formation of his own Knesset list, saying the doors of his “home party,” Labor, have been closed to him.
Speaking at a news conference in Tel Aviv yesterday, Eliav said he had waited for a call from the Labor Party to rejoin its ranks. But when the invitation failed to appear, he said he decided to run in the July 23 elections on his own.
He said his list, “Aryeh Eliav for the Knesset,” would advocate his past political views which include the call for the establishment of a Palestinian state, side by side with Israel.
Eliav, among the more prominent Israeli doves, left Labor after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, expressing disappointment with the party’s failure to meet social and political challenges.
Prior to the 1977 elections, he, along with Uri Avneri, Matti Peled, Yaacov Amon and other prominent leftwing leaders formed the Sheli Party which called for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. However, the party performed poorly in the elections, bringing about Eliav’s departure from Sheli and the eventual split of the party into two groups. He has devoted much of his time to volunatry educational work in development towns, and was involved in the secret negotiations that led to the release of Israeli prisoners from the captivity of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
