Meretz

Meretz (מרצ, Hebrew: "vitality", "energy") was an Israeli political party, considered to be on the "left" and secular. It was formed in 1992 by the merger of three other parties, RATZ (רץ, 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.

Factions

Meretz has 2 main factions within it:

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• 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 Israeli military operations in the occupied territories: while the Securitist faction regards them as legitimate counter-terror operations, the radical stream oppose them as "illegal and immoral" attacks.

Related Topics:
Israeli military - Occupied territories - Counter-terror

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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.

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Meretz currently has 6 seats in the (16th elected) Israeli Parliament, and had seats in previous Parliaments as listed below:

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1992 - 12 seats,

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1996 - 9 seats,

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1999 - 10 seats,

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2003 - 6 seats.

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