Would Israel’s left succeed in uniting ahead of elections?
The left-wing Meretz and Labor parties know that running on one ticket could garner more votes, but have failed so far to reach an agreement.
On the night of July 16, Chairman of the Labor party Amir Peretz and Chairman of the Meretz party Nitzan Horowitz, the new leaders of their left-wing parties, held a meeting. On the table was another attempt to create a mechanism for a joint run in the upcoming September election in order to maximize their electoral share. The need for unity is clear; the situation of the two parties is dire and their unity could create a significant left-wing party. Despite this, real progress was not made.
Reports of a successful meeting that came out of the two campaign offices and were promoted to the press did not show the large gaps between them. Even though both understand the need for unity, they have not managed to advance it yet.
A source who spoke with Horowitz after the meeting got the sense that Peretz spoke a lot about ideology and about his desire to bring into the party people from the right with the goal of getting the votes of Likud voters. Horowitz is wary of this. In his view this is not the platform to pursue, especially since in the last election, in April, Meretz got the voting equivalent of a parliamentary seat and a half from the Arab public out of Meretz's four seats. He does not understand why a left-wing party should appeal to right-wing voters.
On the other hand, a source who spoke with Peretz got the sense that he is sure of his ability to appeal to right-wing voters on the periphery, as he did in 2006, when he previously served as chairman of Labor.
