Uniting the Israeli Left?

[Darranar]

Immediately after leaving the army, Ariel Sharon created the Likud. It was 1973, when he realized that the army top brass would never tolerate his appointment as Chief-of-Staff.

For the creation of the Likud, he had a simple recipe: to unify all the four factions of the Right: Begin's Herut ("freedom") movement, the Liberal Party, the "Free Center" and the "State List".

That was quite ridiculous. Herut and the Liberals had already formed a joint bloc. The two other factions were insignificant little groups. The "State List" was a remnant of the party founded by Ben-Gurion after Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres had deserted him and rejoined the Labor party. The "Free Center" was splinter party led by Shmuel Tamir. The big unification was a sham. Indeed, none of the factions' leaders liked it. Sharon imposed it by creating public pressure.

At the time, I asked him about the sense of this maneuver. He explained the logic: the public must be given the impression that the entire Right Wing is coming together and creating a big political force. Nobody should be left out. Therefore, even the two small factions had to be included. There was an added value to the inclusion of the "State List", which originated in the Labor movement: it could provide an alibi for former left-wingers ready to join the Right.

Tikkun