Ratz (party)
The Ratz ( Hebrew רצ), actually Movement for Civil Rights and Peace ( Hebrew התנועה לזכויות האזרח ולשלום), is a former Israeli party. It was founded in 1973 by the former HaMa'arach MP and human rights politician Shulamit Aloni , when she had fallen out with her party, in the run-up to the elections to the 8th Knesset and belonged to the left-wing party spectrum. She was successful in the elections for the eighth to twelfth Knessets. It had its best result in the elections for the twelfth Knesset, where it won 4.3% of the vote and was the fifth largest parliamentary group with five seats in the Knesset. Ratz, Mapam and Schinui founded the electoral alliance Meretz in 1992 on the occasion of the elections to the 13th Knesset , which became its own party in February 1997.
Political positions
Ratz was the first political party in Israel to be founded by a woman. Her political priorities included working for human rights and the rights of women. One of her candidates was the feminist Marcia Freedman , a member of the 8th Knesset. One of the main topics was not only formal and legal equality between the sexes, questions of marriage and divorce law, but also the discussion of violence against women in the family and topics of structural gender inequality.
As part of the peace movement in Israel, the Ratz was against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and in favor of a peace agreement with the PLO .
Another concern of the party was the campaign for a written constitution, the strict separation of state and religion, the campaign against corruption and, at times, advocating reform of the electoral law.
development
After the failure of the 16th Israeli government, which was founded by Golda Meir on March 10, 1974, the Ratz participated briefly from June 3, 1974 to November 6, 1974 in the subsequent coalition government under Yitzchak Rabin . During this time Aloni was Minister without Portfolio. She left the coalition after the National Religious Party joined the government. For a short time, the Ratz and Arje Eliav vom HaMa'arach formed the Ya'ad ( Hebrew יעד) (Ya'ad - Hebrew civil rights movement יעד - תנועה לזכויות האזרח), until Eliav left the Ratz together with Freedmann and founded his own parliamentary group.
In the elections that followed for the 9th and 10th Knesset, the party barely made it into the Knesset and was represented there by Aloni. After merging with another small party ( Sheli ( Hebrew של״י), an acronym for Shalom LeYisrael ( Hebrew שלום לישראל), German: Peace for Israel ) before the elections to the 11th Knesset, the Ratz won three seats, one of which went to the former Sheli member Ran Cohen . In addition, two other Knesset members joined during the electoral term: Jossi Sarid left HaMa'arach, and Mordechai Virshubski, one of the co-founders of the Zionist-liberal Schinui party, joined the Ratz. In the next elections to the 12th Knesset on November 1, 1988, the party achieved its best result to date with 4.3 and was able to keep these five seats.
Before the next elections to the 13th Knesset, which took place on June 23, 1992, Mapam, Schinui and Ratz formed an electoral alliance called Meretz (German: Energie ), which with 12 seats became the third largest faction in the Knesset. Initially, the parties retained their independence in the alliance, but then merged into one party in 1997 under the new name.
Overview of election results
| Knesset | Result in% | Number of seats (before the next election) |
Members joining or leaving |
Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8th Knesset | 2.2 | 3 (2) |
Schulamit Aloni, Boaz Moav Marcia Freedman |
Marcia Freedmann founded the Social Democratic Faction together with Arje Eliav . |
| 9th Knesset | 1.2 | 1 (1) |
Shulamit Aloni | |
| 10th Knesset | 1.4 | 1 (1) |
Shulamit Aloni | |
| 11th Knesset | 2.4 | 3 (5) |
Shulamit Aloni, Mordechai Bar-On, Ran Cohen Jossi Sarid , Mordechai Virshubski |
David Zucker moved to Sarid on November 26, 1986 for Bar-On, was previously a member of HaMa'arach and Virshubski von Schinui |
| 12th Knesset | 4.3 | 5 (5) |
Schulamit Aloni, Ran Cohen, Jossi Sarid, Mordechai Virshubski, David Zucker |
Web links
Brief portrait on Knesset.gov (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Barry Rubin: Israel. An Introduction. Yale University Press, New Haven 2012. ISBN 978-0-300-16230-1 , p. 217
- ↑ Brief portrait on Knesset.gov (English)
- ↑ Itamar Rabinovich, Jehuda Reinharz (Ed.): Israel in the Middle East. Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present. Brandeis University Press, Lebanon (New Hampshire) 2008, ISBN 978-0-87451-962-4 , p. 290
- ↑ Overview of the 17th government on Knesset.gov (English)
- ↑ Overview of the 8th Knesset on Knesset.gov (English)
- ↑ Overview of the election results for the 12th Knesset from Knesset.gov. (English)
- ↑ Overview of the election results for the 13th Knesset from Knesset.gov. (English)