Centre Party (Israel)
Encyclopedia
The Centre Party originally known as Israel in the Centre, was a short-lived political party in Israel
. Formed in 1999 by former Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai
, the aim was to create a group of moderates to challenge both Binyamin Netanyahu on the right and opposition leader Ehud Barak
's Labour Party on the left.
term, by Mordechai, David Magen
and Dan Meridor
from Likud
, Hagai Meirom
and Nissim Zvili
of Labour, and Eliezer Sandberg
of Tzomet
. However, the most significant ally Mordechai had made was General Amnon Lipkin-Shahak
, the just-retired army Chief-of-Staff who had been his most bitter rival for that post in 1994.
It borrowed many of its themes from The Third Way
, a group that split with the Labour Party in 1994 over the latter's willingness to negotiate the return of the Golan Heights to Syria for a peace treaty. However, by 1999 The Third Way was a partner of the Likud government and had lost much of its public credit due to its small influence on Netanyahu. Mordechai, who was less hawkish than Netanyahu, wanted further progress in the Oslo Accords
, and clashed with the prime minister and other members of his cabinet. Though few of the new party's positions were original, it was considered impossible for Mordechai to break with the Likud in any other way, as joining the Labour Party would mean taking the passenger seat to Ehud Barak, who was far more hated by Mordechai than Netanyahu.
The joining of Dan Meridor was one of the best events of the early days of the party. One of the Likud's younger and more professional members, Meridor had a solid record as minister of justice from 1988 until 1992, was the son of Irgun
resistance member and later Knesset member Eliyahu Meridor, and was a civilian counterballance to Mordechai.
but dropped out before the ballot when it became clear that Ehud Barak was rapidly rising in the polls. In elections to the Knesset itself the Centre Party took roughly 5% of the vote, enough for 6 seats.
coalition alongside Shas
, Meretz
, the National Religious Party
and Yisrael BaAliyah. Mordechai became Minister of Transport and Deputy Prime Minister, whilst Lipkin-Shahak became Minister of Tourism
. Following Shas leaving the coaltion in August 2000, former mayor of Tel Aviv
, Roni Milo
, was made Minister of Health
. However, Mordechai was brought down by a sex scandal from his years in the army, and resigned from the Knesset on 30 May, 2000; Lipkin-Shahak replaced him as Minister of Transport. Following Mordechai's resignation, the party began to disintegrate.
. Milo and former Likud member Yehiel Lasry defected back to Likud, and Rabin-Pelossof, Lipkin, and Uri Savir formed the New Way
after Barak lost elections for prime minister to Ariel Sharon
in 2001. By the end of the Knesset term only Meridor and Nehama Ronen
remained in the faction and the party did not run in the 2003 elections.
When the Sharon government came to power, Lipkin and his New Way broke with the Center and tried to be a part of the opposition, but had minimal effect against the broad coalition that included Likud, Labour, Shas, and numerous other parties across the spectrum. Both Meridor and Lipkin became disillusioned with politics by the time of the 2003 elections, and neither ran. Lipkin later joined the Labour Party in an internal role.
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Formed in 1999 by former Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai
Yitzhak Mordechai
Yitzhak Mordechai is an Israeli former general and politician. He served as a member of the Knesset between 1996 and 2001, and as Minister of Defense and Minister of Transport. He retired from political life after being indicted for sexual assaults during his military service and later...
, the aim was to create a group of moderates to challenge both Binyamin Netanyahu on the right and opposition leader Ehud Barak
Ehud Barak
Ehud Barak is an Israeli politician who served as Prime Minister from 1999 until 2001. He was leader of the Labor Party until January 2011 and holds the posts of Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister in Binyamin Netanyahu's government....
's Labour Party on the left.
History
The party was established on 23 February 1999, towards the end of the 14th Knesset'sIsraeli legislative election, 1996
Elections for the fourteenth Knesset were held in Israel on 29 May 1996. Voter turnout was 79.3%.The 1996 elections included two new changes, both designed to increase the stability of the Knesset. First, the Prime Minister was to be elected on a separate ballot from the remaining members of the...
term, by Mordechai, David Magen
David Magen
David Magen is a former Israeli politician who served as a Minister without Portfolio and Minister of Economics and Planning in the 1990s.-Biography:...
and Dan Meridor
Dan Meridor
Dan Meridor is an Israeli politician and minister. A longtime member of the Likud party, in the late 1990s he became one of the founders of the Centre Party. He rejoined Likud in the early 2000s, and returned to the Knesset following the 2009 elections...
from Likud
Likud
Likud is the major center-right political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin in an alliance with several right-wing and liberal parties. Likud's victory in the 1977 elections was a major turning point in the country's political history, marking the first time the left had...
, Hagai Meirom
Hagai Meirom
Hagai Meirom is a former Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Alignment, Labor Party and the Centre Party between 1988 and 1999.-Biography:...
and Nissim Zvili
Nissim Zvili
-Biography:Born in Tunisia, Zvili made aliyah at a young age. He graduated from an agricultural high school and later served with the IDF. He took courses in political science at Bar-Ilan University and in public administration at Oxford and Cambridge....
of Labour, and Eliezer Sandberg
Eliezer Sandberg
Eliezer Sandberg is a former Israeli politician who served as a government minister between 2003 and 2004.-Biography:Born in Haifa, Sandberg studied law at Tel Aviv University, gaining an LLB. He joined the Tzomet party, and became a member of its secretariat in 1988. He also served as the party's...
of Tzomet
Tzomet
Tzomet is a small secular, right-wing political party in Israel.-Ideology:The party was the one who first brought the "peace for peace" slogan, which today is used by all Israeli right wing parties and movements...
. However, the most significant ally Mordechai had made was General Amnon Lipkin-Shahak
Amnon Lipkin-Shahak
Amnon Lipkin-Shahak is a former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Member of the Knesset andMinister of Transportation and Tourism.-Military service:Lipkin-Shahak started his military service as a teenager in the military boarding-school in Haifa...
, the just-retired army Chief-of-Staff who had been his most bitter rival for that post in 1994.
It borrowed many of its themes from The Third Way
Third Way (Israel)
The Third Way was a political party in Israel in the 1990s.- Background :The party was formed on 7 March 1996 towards the end of the thirteenth Knesset's term when two MKs, Avigdor Kahalani and Emanuel Zisman, broke away from the Labour Party...
, a group that split with the Labour Party in 1994 over the latter's willingness to negotiate the return of the Golan Heights to Syria for a peace treaty. However, by 1999 The Third Way was a partner of the Likud government and had lost much of its public credit due to its small influence on Netanyahu. Mordechai, who was less hawkish than Netanyahu, wanted further progress in the Oslo Accords
Oslo Accords
The Oslo Accords, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or Declaration of Principles , was an attempt to resolve the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict...
, and clashed with the prime minister and other members of his cabinet. Though few of the new party's positions were original, it was considered impossible for Mordechai to break with the Likud in any other way, as joining the Labour Party would mean taking the passenger seat to Ehud Barak, who was far more hated by Mordechai than Netanyahu.
The joining of Dan Meridor was one of the best events of the early days of the party. One of the Likud's younger and more professional members, Meridor had a solid record as minister of justice from 1988 until 1992, was the son of Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
resistance member and later Knesset member Eliyahu Meridor, and was a civilian counterballance to Mordechai.
1999 elections
Prior to the 1999 elections the party changed its name to the Centre Party. Mordechai was also a candidate in the direct election for prime ministerIsraeli prime ministerial election, 1999
The second Prime Ministerial election in Israel was held on 17 May 1999 alongside elections for the 15th Knesset. Voter turnout was 69.0%.-Context:...
but dropped out before the ballot when it became clear that Ehud Barak was rapidly rising in the polls. In elections to the Knesset itself the Centre Party took roughly 5% of the vote, enough for 6 seats.
Joining the government
The party joined Ehud Barak's One IsraelOne Israel
One Israel was an alliance of the Labor Party, Meimad and Gesher created to run for the 1999 Knesset elections.-Background:One Israel was formed by Labor leader Ehud Barak in the run-up to the 1999 elections with the aim of making Labor appear more centrist and to reduce its secularist and elitist...
coalition alongside Shas
Shas
Shas is an ultra-orthodox religious political party in Israel, primarily representing Sephardic and Mizrahi Haredi Judaism.Shas was founded in 1984 by dissident members of the Ashkenazi dominated Agudat Israel, to represent the interests of religiously observant Sephardic and Mizrahi ...
, Meretz
Meretz-Yachad
New Movement-Meretz , previously known as Meretz, then Yachad, and then Meretz-Yachad is a left-wing, Zionist, social democratic political party in Israel....
, the National Religious Party
National Religious Party
The National Religious Party ) was a political party in Israel representing the religious Zionist movement. Formed in 1956, at the time of its dissolution in 2008, it was the second oldest surviving party in the country after Agudat Yisrael, and was part of every government coalition until 1992...
and Yisrael BaAliyah. Mordechai became Minister of Transport and Deputy Prime Minister, whilst Lipkin-Shahak became Minister of Tourism
Tourism Minister of Israel
The Tourism Minister of Israel is the political head of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism and a relatively minor position in the Israeli cabinet. The position is currently held by Stas Misezhnikov of Yisrael Beiteinu....
. Following Shas leaving the coaltion in August 2000, former mayor of Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
, Roni Milo
Roni Milo
Roni Milo is an Israeli politician, lawyer and journalist, and a former Knesset member who held several ministerial positions. He was also mayor of Tel Aviv from 1993 to 1998.-Political career:...
, was made Minister of Health
Health Minister of Israel
The Ministry of Health is a ministry in the Israeli government. The current Minister of Health is Binyamin Netanyahu of Likud.There is occasionally a Deputy Minister of Health...
. However, Mordechai was brought down by a sex scandal from his years in the army, and resigned from the Knesset on 30 May, 2000; Lipkin-Shahak replaced him as Minister of Transport. Following Mordechai's resignation, the party began to disintegrate.
Unravelling
The perceived blandness of the Centre Party during the frenzied opposition campaign against Barak made it a dead duck in the Knesset, and soon its legislators began to desert, although Shahak would not resign from the cabinet, and the Centre Party was the only group that stayed the duration of the Barak governmentTwenty-eighth government of Israel
The twenty-eighth government of Israel was formed by Ehud Barak of One Israel on 6 July 1999 after his victory in the May election for Prime Minister. Alongside One Israel , Barak included Shas, Meretz, Yisrael BaAliyah, the Centre Party, the National Religious Party and United Torah Judaism in his...
. Milo and former Likud member Yehiel Lasry defected back to Likud, and Rabin-Pelossof, Lipkin, and Uri Savir formed the New Way
New Way (Israel)
-Background:The faction was formed on 6 March 2001 when three MKs, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Dalia Rabin-Pelossof and Uri Savir, broke away from the Centre Party....
after Barak lost elections for prime minister to Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel’s 11th Prime Minister. He has been in a permanent vegetative state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006....
in 2001. By the end of the Knesset term only Meridor and Nehama Ronen
Nehama Ronen
Nehama Ronen is a former Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Centre Party between 2001 and 2003.-Biography:Ronen studied education and history at Tel Aviv University, gaining a B.Ed...
remained in the faction and the party did not run in the 2003 elections.
Significance
When Mordechai campaigned in 1999 for prime minister, it was rightly believed that he would be the factor that would kill the chance of Netanyahu's reelection. It was not yet known whether the Center Party was simply a group of disgruntled Likud and Labour members, or were progressive ideologues of their parties. The worst problem they encountered was the ascendance of Shas, the Haredi pressure group that drew masses of Mizrahim that otherwise may have voted for Mordechai. Even at its height, the Center was only the fourth largest party in Barak's coalition, after Labour, Shas, and Meretz respectively. They also could not effectively counter Meretz's leftward slant that ultimately led to defection of more moderate allies in the coalition.When the Sharon government came to power, Lipkin and his New Way broke with the Center and tried to be a part of the opposition, but had minimal effect against the broad coalition that included Likud, Labour, Shas, and numerous other parties across the spectrum. Both Meridor and Lipkin became disillusioned with politics by the time of the 2003 elections, and neither ran. Lipkin later joined the Labour Party in an internal role.
External links
- Israel in the Centre Knesset website
- Centre Party Knesset website