‘The Democrats’: Labour and Meretz merge to strengthen Israel’s left-wing
Labour Party leader Yair Golan said the two parties would work to replace 'the most terrible government since the establishment of the state'
Israel’s two left-wing parties, Labour and Meretz, announced a merger this weekend after years of internal divide between the two former rivals turned allies.
The two parties issued a joint statement in which they labeled the merger a “historic process that produced, finally, one large and united party, a liberal-democratic Zionist party that will be a political home for a large part of the Israeli population.”
Yair Golan, the new leader of the Labour Party, called the merger a necessary step “on the way to the establishment of the broad home for the liberal democratic public in Israel and is a necessary condition for a change of government.”
“Israel is in its most difficult time and this is the time for decisions – serious security threats, the real danger of annexing millions of Palestinians and the undermining of our delicate fabric of life – all of these require courageous steps. Our public is fighting in the streets to change the face of the country,” Golan said.
“Today we have built a framework that will serve the public as best as possible on the way to promoting elections and replacing the most terrible government since the establishment of the state,” he added.
Meretz secretary general Tomer Reznik said: “The Zionist left is alive and well! We did not unite to return to the Knesset; we united to return to power. The Zionist left is here to grow and get stronger.”
“This union is a double correction – it is also a correction of the past, but it is mainly a correction for the future – because without the union and without the integration of the ideology and ideas of the parties alongside their translation into a significant political force, there will be no correction for Israel. This is the only political body that bravely waves the political, social and civil flag, and Israel must make fateful decisions in these areas,” he added.
In the last election, former Labour leader Merav Michaeli rejected the idea of merging the two parties to prevent vote losses. Meretz ended up not crossing the electoral threshold, causing great anger at Michaeli among left-wing politicians who warned about that exact scenario.
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