The leaders of the Meretz and Labor parties, Nitzan Horowitz and Merav Michaeli, participated this morning (Friday) in the May 1 conference of the Berl Katzenelson Foundation, with the focus of the conference marking a year for the government. During the conference, Horowitz and Michaeli addressed the possibility of a future connection between the two parties.
The chairman of the Labor Party and the Minister of Transport, Merav Michaeli, said: “Without our containment battles in the past year, we would have been in a different place today. I had no illusion as to which government we were forming, and that it would be a right-wing government. The State of Israel has been pushed to the right for years with a great deal of money and propaganda. In all areas of our lives. With these opening figures, our achievements are really good. “
“Netanyahu introduced standards to the Israeli public that have never been here. Our camp has suffered violence and incitement never seen here and has resulted in the assassination of a prime minister and the loss of our identity. This government is the beginning of the next era. We are restoring our confidence in the righteousness of our path and rebuilding the political camp, “Michaeli added.
“Part of our post-trauma symptoms is the crushing of the camp on non-democratic parties that have no clear ideology, certainly not the ideology we are here for today – the ideology of equality, of peace, of exemplary society. To rebuild democratic parties that are committed to the egalitarian and security Zionist vision of the State of Israel. “This means that in the next election we as a camp must and must do everything to rebuild the democratic parties that are our Labor Party and our sister party, Meretz, and bring the forces back to that and stop the dispersal and division,” Michaeli concluded.
Health Minister Horowitz added: “I have had a historic right to form this government, we have proved that the left can be in leadership and in power. We have proved that social democratic policy is very practical and touches the people. I would like to see a united Social Democratic Party, I believe in it. “.
In addition, Horowitz attacked the budget department at the Ministry of Finance, saying that “the budget department reflects right-wing economic policy and our role is to present and promote alternatives. Social services should grow and expand rather than shrink. “We have a huge shortage of doctors and private medicine draws the remaining manpower. And who is harmed by it? All of us. It destroys public medicine in Israel. Public medicine must be strengthened, and it must receive many more resources. Litzman will dry up public medicine in Israel.” .
Horowitz concluded by saying that “we have learned all the tricks of the treasury, it will no longer be possible to work on us. The state has huge surpluses from tax collection, unemployment is low, the economy is thriving and the state has more money to give. “Choose, no one can restrain, and they do so according to Reagan’s ancient economic conceptions.”
Those who did not like the words of the chairman of the fact were the party’s secretary general, Eran Hermoni, who said that the Labor Party is not a branch of Meretz, it must return to a leading place in the center-left and not be sucked into a narrow and marginal niche. This requires us to initiate unions towards the center and to establish a large framework that fights for power, and not a marginal framework with Meretz.
He added: “The mission of the Labor Party is to be a leading movement that promotes the agenda of a Zionist, national and social center-left. A movement that deals with the core issues of the State of Israel and is home to a wide and diverse public. It could never happen with Meretz In this movie. In such a union, the whole is smaller than the sum of its parts, and it prevents the Labor Party from being in the natural political and ideological box. “
“The vision we must present is a unification of Labor forces, blue and white, there is a future and other factors in the camp, and a democratic election of an agreed candidate for prime minister, and not a unification with Nitzan Horowitz and Musi Raz. I have respect for Meretz and its role as a boutique party. Rabbi Meretz offers us a honey trap and we must remove it completely from the chapter. Michaeli’s words from today according to which the split between the work and Meretz must be stopped are very disturbing. I expect Michaeli to make it unequivocally clear that she opposes the union with Meretz, Hermoni emphasized.
“As Secretary General of the Labor Party, I warn: another connection with the Labor Party will forever cut off the chances of Labor returning to the forefront of the stage, and will be a cry for generations. I am convinced that a very large majority of Labor voters and supporters support the line I present. To create a large framework, not for a niche connection with Meretz, the party’s secretary general concluded.
It should be noted that if and when the parties decide to run together, this will not be the first time. In the 2019 elections, Meretz is a member of the Gesher party led by Orel Levy-Abaxis and Labor led by Amir Peretz. The connection then gained 7 seats, with Levy-Abaxis resigning from it after the election, as well as Peretz and Itzik Shmuli, who were members of the Netanyahu-Ganz government.