Meretz
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- This is an article about the Israeli political party, which was disbanded in 2003. The institutional heir to this party, often colloquially referred to as Meretz, is the Meretz-Yachad.
Meretz (מרצ, Hebrew: "vitality", "energy") was an Israeli leftist secular political party. It was formed in 1992 by the merger of three other parties, Ratz (רצ, Movement for Civil Rights and Peace), Mapam (מפ"ם, Israeli Workers Party) and Shinui (שינוי, Change). In 1996 they officially registered as a single party, but in 1997 part of Shinui (under the leadership of Avraham Poraz) left to form a separate movement.
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Left wing positions
Meretz positions are left-wing in both social-economical and political views:
- Meretz supports the foundation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.
- It demands the total evacuation of Israeli settlements,
- The retreat of the Israeli army from the armstice lines of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, known as the Green Line.
- Furthermore, Meretz supports moderate interference of the state in internal-economy and the full liberation of civil-rights from religion.
It is associated with the non-parliamentary movement "Peace Now".
Factions
Meretz has 2 main factions within it:
- The "Securitist Zionists" (Bithonistim) led by Yossi Sarid, Ran Cohen and Avshalom Vilan;
- The radicals led by Zehava Galon, Yossi Beilin and Shulamit Aloni.
The two factions differ mainly on their approach toward Israel Defense Forces operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; while the Securitist faction regards them as legitimate counter-terror operations, the radical stream oppose them as "illegal and immoral" attacks.
Although Meretz officially denounces refusal to serve in the military on political grounds, the radical faction supports the refuseniks and justify their actions. Furthermore, there is a group of refuseniks who are members of the various institutions of Yahad, amongst others, the Yahad Council, the Yahad Management and the party Court.
Meretz currently has 6 seats in the (16th elected) Israeli Parliament, and had seats in previous Parliaments as listed below:
1992 - 12 seats, 1996 - 9 seats, 1999 - 10 seats, 2003 - 6 seats. 2006 - 5 seats
Disbanding of Meretz
In December 2003, Meretz was disbanded in order to merge with Yossi Beilin's Shahar (שח"ר) movement. The new party was called Yachad (יח"ד);, which literally means "together", but is also an abbreviation of "Democrat Social Israel" in Hebrew. The original name was to be Yaad, which means "goal" in Hebrew, but was replaced because the meaning of Yad in Russian is poison.
In March 2004 a party leadership race was run between Meretz's Ran Cohen and Shahar's Yossi Beilin, with Yossi Beilin emerging the victor. Following the victory of Beilin and Yachad's radicalization, many former Meretz supporters withdrew their support from the new party.
In July 2005 Yachad changed its name to Meretz-Yachad. The reason was that the name Yachad was not recognized by the public, who preferred the old name Meretz. Chairman Beilin opposed a motion to revert back to Meretz and as a compromise it was decided to merge the 2 names as Meretz-Yachad.
In December 2005, Yossi Sarid announced his retirement from the Knesset, and the veteran MK and former Minister will not be running in the 2006 Israel Election.