Participation and Brotherhood
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Participation and Brotherhood (Hebrew: שיתוף ואחווה, Shituf ve-Akhva) was a political party in Israel.
[edit] History
Participation and Brotherhood was an Israeli Arab organisation formed to fight the 1959 elections. Like other Israeli Arab parties at the time, it was associated with David Ben Gurion's Mapai party, as Ben Gurion was keen to include Israeli Arabs in the functioning of the state in order to prove Jews and Arabs could co-exist peacefully and productively.
In the elections, the party won 1.1% of the votes and two seats, which were taken by Laviv-Hussein Abu Rochan and Yussef Diab. Because of its association with Mapai, the party joined the governing coaltion.
In the 1961 elections the party increased its share of the vote to 1.9%, overtaking Progress and Development to become the most popular Israeli Arab party in the Knesset. Despite its increased vote, the party still won only two seats, though it was again part of all three coalition governments during the fifth Knesset. Both Abu Rochan and Diab were replaced, their places taken by Jabr Moade (formerly an MK for the Democratic List for Israeli Arabs) and Diyab Ovid.
The 1965 elections saw a drop in support to just 1.3% of the vote, though the party retained its two seats and was again included in the coalition government. During the Knesset session the party briefly merged with Progress and Development to form Participation and Development, though the union split up soon after its formation. Towards the end of the session Moade broke away from the party to form the Druze Party, though he was elected to the next Knesset as a member of Progress and Development.
In the 1969 elections the party retained its two seats with a small increase in their share of the vote to 1.4%. Elias Nahale (who had broken away from Progress and Development to form the Jewish-Arab Brotherhood after Participation and Development had broken up, effectively swapping parties with Moade) took the second seat, and the party joined the governing coalition.
The party failed to cross the electoral threshold in the 1973 elections and subsequently disappeared.
