Since her election as leader of the Labor party Jan. 23, Knesset member Merav Michaeli has succeeded in reviving the long-dormant party. For months, people wondered whether it would even pass the electoral threshold, but with Michaeli at the helm, recent polls show that it could win as many as six seats.
This is a remarkable achievement, but things are not all bright and rosy in the party. Since she was chosen as the new party leader, she has had to contend with two waves of defections. It began with an announcement from the head of the party’s Arab Division, Raleb Majadele, that he is leaving the party, along with 20 Arab party activists. Majadele made history in 2007 by becoming the country’s first Arab minister (appointed minister without portfolio). This was followed by reports that several veteran party members had decided to quit Labor for the Blue and White party, headed by Benny Gantz.
It was the Labor party under late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that signed the Oslo Accord with the Palestinians and a separate peace treaty with Jordan. Rabin did this with a government based on a majority of all Israelis, and not just the Jewish majority. He forged a partnership with two Arab parties, Hadash and the Democratic Arab Party, to block the opposition from removing Labor from power so that he could press forward with his agenda. It was a groundbreaking decision. Until then, all Israeli prime ministers had based their support on Jewish parties only, refusing to rely on Israel’s Arab parties.
Nevertheless, while Rabin’s second government is commonly regarded as the “Golden Age” for Israel’s Arab citizens, it now looks as if his party — now headed by Michaeli, a self-proclaimed “Rabinist” — is unable to keep the Jewish-Arab relationship intact within her own party. As aforementioned, a large number of Arab activists quit Labor to protest what they described as Michaeli’s dismissive attitude toward the Arab public. As they put it, they feel “unappreciated” after everything they have done, and are being ignored by the Labor party’s new leader.
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