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Senior Meretz members have rejected a new initiative to turn the left-wing party into a Jewish-Arab list, citing little public support for such a move, a report said Wednesday.
An internal poll, conducted as Israel looks set to run in its fourth election in less than two years, indicated that only 0.7% of the country’s center-left voters are confident they would vote for an Arab-Jewish party, he said. reported the Haaretz newspaper.
Another 21.6% said there was a chance they would vote for such a party, which would have equal representation of Jewish and Arab candidates and whose ideology would be somewhere between the center-left Yesh Atid and the predominantly mixed list. Arab. One of the four factions on the Joint List, Hadash, is Arab-Jewish.
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“Such a move is not feasible,” Haaretz said, citing an anonymous senior member of Meretz. “That’s the truth. We should spare the effort. This story has been disproportionate.”
Another anonymous source from Meretz estimated that the target audience of an Arab-Jewish party was only 3,000-4,000 people.
“In the end, it’s really a very small group,” the source said. “We can attract Arab voters, but I’m not necessarily looking for an Arab-Jewish party. On the other hand, Jewish voters may be dissuaded from voting for such a list, because Meretz’s voters see themselves by definition as a Zionist left. ”
Last month, Meretz discussed the new initiative, presented by former party lawmakers and former left-wing Labor Party members. They argued that the move would rekindle interest in the party and revive voters who had shifted their support to the centrist Blue and White or the Joint List.
Labor Party President Amir Peretz (C), leader Meretz Nitzan Horowitz (2L) and party members hold a press conference in Tel Aviv on March 12, 2020. (Tomer Neuberg / Flash90)
Meretz and Labor ran together in the last elections in March, but split later when Labor – without MK Merav Michaeli – joined the Likud-Blue-White coalition, while Meretz opted for the opposition.
Meretz currently has three lawmakers – his leader Nitzan Horowitz, Tamar Zandberg and Yair Golan – but is expected to increase his power to five to seven seats in the Knesset according to recent opinion polls. The powerful Labor, who led Israel for its first 30 years and was in power for the last time in 2001, is expected to disappear from the political landscape.
During the meeting, Horowitz allegedly warned that new leftist parties would be formed to compete with Meretz, including that of current Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai, who “has no intention” of collaborating with Meretz.
He also mentioned a new Jewish-Arab party recently announced by the mayor of Nazareth Ali Salam. October reports had named Yona Yahav, the former three-time mayor of Haifa, as a possible partner of Salam. But Horowitz said such a party would not be leftist.
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