United Workers Party

History

Mapam was established in January 1948 by the merger of the kibbutz-based Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party, the non-kibbutz-based Socialist League, and the Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement. The party's orientation was more Marxist and left-wing than that of the larger Mapai party, and it was closely associated with the Kibbutz Artzi Federation of the Hashomer Hatzair movement. It also continued a Hashomer Hatzair-affiliated publication as the Al HaMishmar newspaper. From 1951 to 1979, the party also published Al-Mirsad ("Observation Post"), an Arabic-language newspaper similar in name to its Hebrew counterpart. It also published the Yiddish-language Yisroel Shtimme Israel Shtime from 1956 to late in 1997.

The new party was part of the 1948 provisional government with a policy toward Arabs that differed from that of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Its executive committee promoted Jewish–Arab coexistence, opposed the expulsion of civilians and supported the Palestinian right of return after the Nakba. Aharon Cohen, head of the party's Arab Affairs Department, authored the policy statement "Our Policy Towards Arabs During the War" in June 1948, emphasising these principles. The party opposed the destruction of Arab villages and cabinet member Aharon Zisling raised related concerns in government meetings. Ben-Gurion criticised Mapam's stance, citing the Battle of Mishmar HaEmek and saying: "They faced a cruel reality ... [and] saw that there was [only] one way and that was to expel the Arab villagers and burn the villages. And they did this, and they were the first to do this."

Mapam initially opposed establishing settlements on depopulated Arab land, though this conflicted with the settlement activities of Kibbutz Artzi, which was ideologically aligned with the party. Of 12 new settlements created during May and June 1948, six were Mapam-related groups. In August 1948, proposals were put forward for the creation of 32 new settlements, 27 of which were beyond the proposed United Nations partition line. A compromise policy was adopted, allowing new settlements on the condition that "surplus land" would remain for the possible return of displaced Arabs. Over time, the party shifted its stance the right of return, eventually supporting restrictions tied to the end of hostilities and to individuals deemed "peace-minded". With the explosion of opposition to the Government's proposal to the United Nations in July 1949 that 100,000 Palestinians might be allowed to return, the issue of return quietly dropped.

The gulf between policy makers in the executive and Mapam members who dominated the leadership of the armed forces was revealed following the military operations in the autumn of 1948. In early November the editor of Al HaMishmar, Eliezer Pra'i, received a letter describing events at al-Dawayima. There followed a meeting of the Political Committee on 11 November 1948, which was briefed by recently ousted Chief of Staff of the Haganah, Yisrael Galili, about the killing of civilians during Operations Yoav and Hiram. Cohen led a call for an independent inquiry. The problem for Mapam was that the commanders of these operations were senior Mapam members Yitzhak Sadeh and Moshe Carmel. It was agreed to accept Ben-Gurion's internal inquiry. In December 1948 party co-leader Meir Ya'ari publicly criticised the Israel Defense Forces for using the expulsion of civilians as an "imperative of strategy". This was probably directed at Mapam member Yigal Allon, who had been chief of operations during Operation Danny.

Alignment

In 1969 Mapam entered into an alliance with the Israeli Labor Party, forming the Alignment, which won 56 of 120 Knesset seats in the 1969 elections, the highest total ever achieved by a single electoral list. At the time, Soviet commentators called Mapam "one of the most reactionary ones among the left-socialist parties".

By the 1970s, some former left-wing Mapam members, including Walid Haj Yahia, Yair Tzaban, Gadi Yatziv, associated themselves with the dovish left-wing, and were founding members of the Left Camp of Israel (Sheli) in 1977, which was pitted against Mapam by its own members as well as political commentators. Sheli chairman Meir Pa'il accused Mapam of 'riding' the increasingly moderate Alignment in order to not 'struggle' in elections. Sheli quickly began to disintegrate due to factional struggles and the Lebanon War, with Haj Yahia, Tzaban and Yatziv returning to Mapam.

Mapam briefly broke away from the Alignment during the eighth Knesset (following the 1973 Israeli legislative election), but returned shortly afterward. Mapam cemented its democratic socialist turn by joining the Socialist International in 1983.

The party then remained part of the Alignment until after the 1984 elections, when it broke away due to anger over Shimon Peres's decision to form a national unity government with Likud, and began to support a two-state solution. Mapam left the Alignment with six MKs, but in July 1988, this was reduced to five when Muhammed Wattad defected to Hadash, as he was unsatisfied with Mapam's lack of Arab representation.

Decline and merger

In their last ever solo campaign, for the 1988 election, Mapam campaigned on the increasing cost of housing, on the economic crisis that the Alignment presided over, and the urgent need for a peace deal. Before the campaigns, talks to form a Mapam-Ratz joint list failed. When Ratz signed a surplus vote agreement with the Alignment, Shem-Tov accused them of wanting to "remove Mapam from the political scene", to which Ratz leader Shulamit Aloni responded by saying that "Mapam's panic is understandable. It is a spoiled party, rich in assets and jobs, which fears any young, fresh organization without vested economic interests that comes to fight with clean hands." She also highlighted the inevitability of the two parties becoming allies, comparing Mapam to the biblical character Saul throwing his spear at David.

Despite Mapam's perceived organisational advantage as a veteran party, opinion polls in the weeks preceding the election predicted them only winning two seats, while Ratz ascended in the polls, with a maximum prediction of eight seats.

In the election, Mapam won 2.5% of the vote and 3 seats, with Amira Sartani and Gadi Yatziv losing their seats. Although Mapam had won one more seat than expected in the polls, this was its worst ever finish.

Mapam had contemplated a merger with other left-wing forces, namely Ratz, as early as 1985. During the 1989 local elections, Mapam, Ratz and the liberal Shinui collaborated, forming joint lists in some localities. In 1992, the election threshold was raised to 1.5%, a number which Mapam had already struggled to reach in 1988. To avoid elimination in that year's election, Mapam, Ratz and Shinui (who were also dangerously close to the new threshold) formed the nationwide Meretz alliance. While Mapam's socialism was at odds with Shinui's economic liberalism and upper-middle class appeal, the three parties united because of their similar views on the peace process and secularism. Although the leaders of all three constituent parties were the focus in Meretz's campaign, Ratz's Shulamit Aloni became the leader of the new alliance. Furthermore, Meretz did not inherit the anti-capitalist politics of Mapam.

Meretz became the third-largest Knesset party in the 1992 elections and was admitted into Yitzhak Rabin's government. Four Mapam members were elected into the Knesset, with Yair Tzaban becoming Minister of Immigrant Absorption. Al HaMishmar ceased publication in 1995, and in 1997 Mapam formally merged into Meretz along with Ratz and part of Shinui, ceasing to exist as an independent political organization.

Ideology

From its founding, Mapam identified itself with Labor Zionist principles. In its first years, the party identified closely with Joseph Stalin's leadership of the Soviet Union, and principles of Marxism–Leninism. The party advocated for the purge of capitalists and the establishment a worker-led state.

The Hashomer Hatzair faction identified with the Eastern Bloc more readily than the Ahdut HaAvoda-Poale Zion Left faction. Furthermore, Hashomer Hatzair supported territorial concessions to Arabs or including them in a bi-national state, while the Ahdut HaAvoda faction, especially Tabenkin himself, supported the idea of Greater Israel.

After the departure of Ahdut HaAvoda-Poale Zion Left, Mapam continued to identify with Borochovist Marxism, and to advocate for an Israeli 'road to socialism'. The party adopted a stance of neutralism in the Cold War. However, following the Six-Day War and the Soviet Union's perceived support for the Arab countries, Mapam began to oppose the USSR.

While in the Alignment, Mapam continued to criticise social democracy for retaining a capitalist class. It also condemned the authoritarian nature of communist-led countries. The party continued to advocate for a socialist society based on equality, self-management and solidarity, with a democratically planned economy. The party advocated support for the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank to create a joint Jordanian-Palestinian state to co-exist with an Israeli state along the Green Line.

In 1983, Mapam joined the Socialist International, an organisation dominated by social democratic parties. After leaving the Alignment, Mapam described itself as a joint Jewish-Arab 'democratic socialist' party. Furthermore, Mapam positioned itself in the peace camp, supporting negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization, in order to establish a two-state solution.

Throughout Mapam's existence, it aligned closely with its kibbutz base, and its values of self-management and voluntarism.