Ale Yarok

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ale Yarok




Leader	Ohad Shem Tov

Founded	1999
Headquarters	P.O.Box 2901, Jerusalem 91028

Political ideology	Liberalism, Environmentalism, Libertarianism
International affiliation

Website	www.ale-yarok.org.il

Ale Yarok (עלה ירוק, "Green Leaf") is an ultra-liberal political party in Israel. Its political platform is based on the legalization of the Cannabis plant, marijuana and hashish, ecology, expansion of human rights and institutionalization of prostitution, gambling and same-sex marriage. Despite that in official publications, the movement claims that "the partition between Right-wing and Left-wing is anachronistic", the party holds "dovish" political opinions and believes in the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by establishing an independent and demilitarized Palestinian state (see Two-state solution). However, the party is considered by the Israeli public as the "light drugs party" since this is the main issue that gets attention in the party's platform. Ale Yarok is known as a party that supports privatization of public companies and opposes corrupt and monopolistic trade unions.

The party ran in the 1999 elections for the 15th Knesset and in the 2003 elections for the 16th Knesset but failed to pass the votes threshold required to win a seat both times. (In 2003, however, Ale Yarok was the party that came closest to passing the threshold.) After failing to make it into the Knesset in the 2003 elections, the chairman of Ale Yarok Boaz Wachtel announced that he was giving up the leadership of the party, but didn't implement his declaration.

Before the 2006 elections for the 17th Knesset the party announced that it intended to run for a third time, despite the raising of the vote threshold required to win a seat. The party competed for votes with the supporters of The Democratic Choice (which later stepped down from running in the election) and with Meretz-Yachad, which has also promised to act for decriminalization of light drugs; another competitor was The Israeli Greens Party with a strong ecological platform.

The top 14 (out of 27) candidates in the Ale Yarok list to the 17th Knesset were: