Three left-of-center political parties will run together as a “peace bloc” in the Knesset elections scheduled for June 23.
Mapam, the veteran United Workers Party of Israel, agreed at the end of its two-day national conference Sunday to join on a single ticket with the much newer Citizens Rights Movement and the Center-Shinui Movement.
CRM, known in Hebrew by the acronym Ratz, holds five Knesset seats, while Mapam holds three and Shinui two. CRM leader Shulamit Alone will probably head the joint list.
Seventy-three percent of the Mapam delegates voted to join forces with the others after its leader, Yair Tsaban, made a strong case for it.
“We will not abandon our own ideological uniqueness,” he vowed, but “we will treat the other partners with respect, despite the ideological differences between us.”
CRM and Shinui are basically closer in outlook than each of them is to the dogmatically socialist Mapam and its Kibbutz Artzi movement.
During the early decades of Israeli statehood, Mapam often stood for election on a joint list with the Labor Party. Both parties are members of the Socialist International. But only Mapam closes its functions with the singing of the socialist anthem, the “Internationale,” a practice long abandoned by Labor.
The leaders of all three peace bloc parties persuaded their rank and file that the cause of peace, which is their common goal, overrides ideological divisions.
They argue further that if Labor’s apparent decline continues, the new bloc could eventually succeed it as the major opposition to Likud.
On the other hand, if Labor’s fortunes improve in the June 23 election, the peace bloc would be its natural coalition partners and might foil attempts by Likud to form another unity government.
Aloni welcomed Mapam’s decision. She said she believed many Israelis shared the dovish views of the three parties but were reluctant in the past to vote for a small party.
“Now they will have the opportunity to support a large party which will stand for peace, for liberties and human rights and for the rule of law,” she said.
In the present Knesset, the three parties have nine seats between them. The polls to date predict a slight increase for the combined bloc.
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