Product Code Database
rect 167 83 445 250 Hapoel Hatzair
rect 450 88 717 265 Non Partisans
rect 721 86 995 243 Poale Zion
rect 152 316 373 502 HaPoel HaMizrachi
rect 552 328 884 512 Ahdut HaAvoda
rect 891 301 1111 534 Poalei Zion Left
rect 283 519 668 928 Mapai
rect 5 665 169 1432 HaOved HaTzioni
rect 697 747 918 953 Ahdut HaAvoda Movement
rect 755 977 959 1234 Ahdut HaAvoda Poalei ZIon
rect 775 1265 1136 1444 Mapam
rect 966 1023 1232 1217 HaShomer Hatzair Workers' Party
rect 1044 572 1228 766 Hashomer Hatzair
rect 942 769 1177 919 Socialist League of Palestine
rect 387 1275 734 1447 Mapai
rect 365 1260 174 1447 HaPoel HaMizrachi
rect 36 6 1225 81 Labor Zionism
desc bottom-left
Mapam was a Labor Zionism and democratic socialist political party in Israel. Established shortly before Israeli independence in January 1948 as a merger between the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party and the Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion movement, it initially represented a Marxism form of Labor Zionism, coupled with support for the Soviet Union. It was once the second largest political force in Israel, drawing support from both the kibbutz and the urban working class movements, and initially benefitted from popularity among the military elite.
Due to growing geopolitical tensions with the USSR in the 1950s and 1960s, the party suffered multiple splits and distanced itself from the Eastern Bloc, joining the Labor Party's Alignment in 1969, abandoning its Marxist positions and moving towards democratic socialism.
Mapam left the Alignment in 1984 when Labor joined a national unity government with the right-wing Likud. It moved to a more peaceful stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, supporting a two-state solution with the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Following a poor showing in the 1988 elections, and the perceived need for a united left-wing Zionist party, it merged with the Ratz and Shinui parties to form the social-democratic Meretz in 1992, with Mapam dissolving altogether 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.Morris, pp. 142, 159. The party opposed the destruction of Arab villages and cabinet member Aharon Zisling raised related concerns in government meetings.Morris, p. 162. "destruction of Arab villages" appears on agenda five times from 16 to 30 June. 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."Morris, p. 116. Though the Haganah had destroyed a large number of houses in Caesarea 5 February 1948. p. 54.
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.Morris, p. 183. 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.Morris, p. 185. 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".Morris, p. 291. 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.Morris, p. 280.
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 Operation Yoav and Operation Hiram. Cohen led a call for an independent inquiry.Morris, p. 232. Cohen's notes from this meeting and the letter sent to Pra'i are practically the only contemporary Israeli records of these events in the public domain. 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.Morris, p. 211. 12 December 1948 at Kibbutz Artzi Council. "I am appalled." A memo, probably written by Allon, had argued that the refugees clogged roads, caused economic problems, damaged moral and would lead to anti-government demonstrations.
In the 1949 Constituent Assembly elections, Mapam won 19 seats, becoming the second-largest party in the Knesset after Mapai. At the time Mapam did not permit non-Jews to become members and instead sponsored an Arab satellite list, the Popular Arab Bloc, which failed to pass the 1% electoral threshold. Although Mapam held coalition talks with Ben-Gurion, it was excluded from the first government.
In the years following Israel's independence, Mapam benefitted from having comprised the majority of the Palmach, the elite forces of the Haganah during the 1948 Palestine war.
During the first Knesset, Mapam gained an additional seat when Eliezer Preminger joined after leaving Maki and then setting up his own party, the Hebrew Communists.
In the 1951 elections Mapam was reduced to 15 seats. That Knesset included Rostam Bastuni, the first Arab to represent a Zionist party. The far-left of Mapam, consisting of Avraham Berman, Bastuni and Moshe Sneh left Mapam's Knesset Faction to establish the Left Faction in 1952, although they remained Mapam members. The Left Faction was more pro-Soviet and more willing to compromise with Arabs than the Mapam party line.
The 1952 Slánský trial severely shook the party's faith in the Soviet Union. The , in which mostly leaders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia were purged, falsely implicated Mapam's envoy in Prague, Mordechai Oren, as part of a Zionist conspiracy.
The ideological shift led to several splits. On 26 December 1952, Mapam's Council convened to vote on motions where the Left Faction found themselves in the minority. Berman and Sneh were dismissed from their positions in the party committee, which they unsuccessfully appealed the decision, after which they accused Mapam of being controlled by 'Mapai agents for the benefit and enjoyment of the bourgeoisie'. On 28 January 1953, Mapam voted to expel Berman and Sneh for their 'fundamental opposition to the socialist Zionist principles' of the party, for trying to 'undermine the party's institutions' and for supporting the ruling of the Prague Trials.
Hannah Lamdan and David Livschitz created their own party, the Faction independent of Ahdut HaAvoda, which lasted for a year before merging into Mapai in early 1954. Afterwards, other party members left to recreate Ahdut HaAvoda, taking four MKs with them, though the Knesset speaker did not recognize the group as an independent party during the Knesset session. It also displeased the USSR. Bastuni later returned to Mapam while Berman and Sneh eventually joined Maki. By the end of the second Knesset, Mapam's strength had dropped to seven seats. The party won nine seats in the 1955 elections and having distanced itself from the Soviet Union, joined Ben-Gurion's coalition governments.
Following these events and Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, Mapam ceased to support the USSR, and it began to moderate its Marxist-Zionist policies toward democratic socialism.
In 1959 Mapam and Ahdut HaAvoda voted against the government's decision to sell arms to West Germany, collapsing the government and leading to Ben-Gurion's brief resignation.
In the 1959 elections the party retained its nine seats, and despite their previous differences, were included in Ben-Gurion's coalition. In the 1961 elections it again won nine seats, but this time was not part of the governing coalition. The 1965 elections saw Mapam lose a seat, dropping to eight mandates, but enter the coalition government.
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.
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.
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,Joel Beinin. Was the Red Flag Flying There?: Marxist Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Egypt and Israel, 1948–1965. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. pp. 27–28 while the Ahdut HaAvoda faction, especially Tabenkin himself, supported the idea of Greater Israel.Gorenberg (2007), pp. 73-74
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 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.
| Yitzhak Tabenkin | 1949 | 1951 | ||
| Meir Ya'ari | 1951 | 1974 | ||
| Meir Talmi | 1974 | 1981 | ||
| Victor Shem-Tov | 1981 | 1988 | ||
| Yair Tzaban | 1988 | 1996 | ||
| Haim Oron | 1996 | 1997 |
| 1949 | Yitzhak Tabenkin | 64,018 | 14.7 (#2) | New | ||
| 1951 | Meir Ya'ari | 86,095 | 12.5 (#3) | 4 | ||
| 1955 | 62,401 | 7.3 (#6) | 3 | |||
| 1959 | 69,468 | 7.2 (#4) | 0 | |||
| 1961 | 75,654 | 7.5 (#5) | 0 | |||
| 1965 | 79,985 | 6.6 (#5) | 1 | |||
| 1969 | Part of Alignment | 1 | ||||
| 1973 | Meir Talmi | 0 | ||||
| 1977 | 3 | |||||
| 1981 | Victor Shem-Tov | 3 | ||||
| 1984 | 1 | |||||
| 1988 | Yair Tzaban | 56,345 | 2.5 (#9) | 3 | ||
| 1992 | Part of Meretz | 1 | ||||
| 1996 | Haim Oron | 1 | ||||
| 1 (1949–1951) (19) (14.7%) | Moshe Aram, Menachem Bader, Dov Bar-Nir (replaced by Menachem Ratzon on 10 April 1951), Yisrael Bar-Yehuda, Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, Mordechai Bentov, Yisrael Galili, Ya'akov Hazan, Fayge Ilanit, Hannah Lamdan, Nahum Nir, Eliezer Peri, Berl Repetur, Ya'akov Riftin, Hanan Rubin, Moshe Sneh, Yitzhak Tabankin (replaced by David Livschitz on 12 April 1951), Meir Ya'ari, Aharon Zisling, Eliezer Preminger (joined from the Hebrew Communists on 15 August 1949) |
| 2 (1951–1955) (15) (12.5%) | Rostam Bastuni, Mordechai Bentov, Ya'akov Hazan, Eliezer Peri, Ya'akov Riftin, Hanan Rubin, Meir Ya'ari, Moshe Aram, Yisrael Bar-Yehuda, Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, Aharon Zisling, Avraham Berman, Moshe Sneh, Hannah Lamdan, David Livschitz |
| 3 (1955–1959) (9) (7.3%) | Yisrael Barzilai, Mordechai Bentov, Ya'akov Hazan, Ya'akov Riftin, Hanan Rubin, Emma Talmi, Meir Ya'ari, Haim Yehuda, Yitzhak Yitzhaky (replaced by Yussuf Hamis on 21 September 1955) |
| 4 (1959–1961) (9) (7.2%) | Yisrael Barzilai, Mordechai Bentov, Yussuf Hamis, Ya'akov Hazan, Ya'akov Riftin, Hanan Rubin, Emma Talmi, Meir Ya'ari, Haim Yehuda (replaced by Yosef Kushnir on 10 July 1960) |
| 5 (1961–1965) (9) (7.5%) | Yisrael Barzilai, Mordechai Bentov, Yussuf Hamis, Ya'akov Hazan, Ya'akov Riftin, Hanan Rubin (replaced by Yosef Kushnir), Victor Shem-Tov, Emma Talmi, Meir Ya'ari |
| 6 (1965–1969) (8) (6.6%) | Reuven Arazi, Ya'akov Hazan, Natan Peled, Shlomo Rosen, Victor Shem-Tov, Emma Talmi, Meir Yaari, Abd el-Aziz el-Zoubi (all merged into the Alignment) |
| 7 (1969–1974) (6) (part of Alignment) | Reuven Arazi, Haika Grossman, Abd el-Aziz el-Zoubi, Dov Zakin, Ya'akov Hazan, Meir Ya'ari, Shlomo Rosen |
| 8 (1973–1977) (6) (part of Alignment) | Yehuda Dranitzki, Aharon Efrat, Haika Grossman, Eliezer Ronen, Meir Talmi, Dov Zakin, Abd el-Aziz el-Zoubi (replaced by Haviv Shimoni of the Labor Party on 14 February 1974) |
| 9 (1977–1981) (4) (part of Alignment) | Haika Grossman, Moshe Amar, Naftali Feder, Meir Talmi, Emri Ron (replaced Haim Yosef Zadok of the Labor Party on 2 January 1978) |
| 10 (1981–1984) (7) (part of Alignment) | Elazar Granot, Muhammed Wattad, Dov Zakin, Naftali Feder, Yair Tzaban, Emri Ron, Victor Shem-Tov |
| 11 (1984–1988) (6) (part of Alignment) | Elazar Granot, Haika Grossman, Amira Sartani, Victor Shem-Tov (replaced by Gadi Yatziv on 15 March 1988), Yair Tzaban, Muhammed Wattad (left to join Hadash on 12 July 1988) |
(3) (2.5%) | Hussein Faris, Haim Oron, Yair Tzaban |
| 13 (1992–1996) (4) (part of Meretz) | Haim Oron, Walid Haj Yahia, Yair Tzaban, Anat Maor |
| 14 (1996–1997) (3) (part of Meretz) | Haim Oron, Walid Haj Yahia, Anat Maor (all merged into Meretz) |
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