Rafi (political party)
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Rafi (Hebrew: רפ"י) was a left-wing political party in Israel, founded by former Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, and is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Labor Party.
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[edit] Name
As is the case with many political parties in Israel, Rafi is an acronym, standing for Reshimat Poalei Yisrael (Hebrew: רשימת פועלי ישראל), translated as Israeli Workers List.
[edit] Background
Rafi was founded in 1965 prior to the elections in the same year, when David Ben-Gurion led a breakaway of eight MKs from Mapai, the ruling party, taking with him Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres amongst others. The split had two main causes. The first was the disagreements within Mapai over the Lavon Affair; Ben Gurion did not agree to declare Lavon innocent without judicial investigation committee. The second was the formation of the Labour Alignment by an alliance of Mapai and Labour Unity. The new party's establishment, a merger of two of the largest left-wing parties, was intended to delay planned reforms to the electoral system (i.e. to change from proportional representation to a constituency-based system) that were important to Ben-Gurion.
The party ran for the 1965 elections on a platform of changing the electoral systems (posters featured a queue of people under the title "The Only Road", with a sign pointing towards "Change the voting system"). Although Ben-Gurion hoped to displace the Labour Alignment as the leading left-wing party in the Knesset, Rafi won only 10 seats. They were not included in Levi Eshkol's coalition government until the formation of a government of national unity during the Six-Day War.
Once in the coalition, links between the Labour Alignment and Rafi were strengthened. In 1968 Rafi, together with Mapam formally joined the alliance. Within the alliance, Rafi, Mapai and Labour Unity merged to form the Israeli Labor Party, though Mapam remained a separate entity. The alliance was renamed as just the Alignment.
However, Ben-Gurion could not reconcile himself to the merger with his foes, and broke away from the party to sit as an independent MK for the rest of the Knesset session. Prior to the 1969 elections, he founded another new party, the National List. However, after Ben-Gurion retired from politics in 1970 it fell apart, eventually merging with the Free Centre and Gahal (led by Ben-Gurion's arch-rival Menachem Begin) to form Likud.
The name Rafi was briefly resurrected during the ninth Knesset and again during the tenth Knesset when breakaways from Likud named themselves Rafi – National List. The party was later renamed Ometz.
[edit] Knesset Members
| Knesset (MKs) |
Knesset Members |
|---|---|
| 5th (8) |
Yosef Almogi, David Ben-Gurion, Gideon Ben-Israel, Moshe Dayan, Amos Degani, Hannah Lamdan, Shimon Peres, Yizhar Smilansky |
| 6th (10) |
Yosef Almogi, David Ben-Gurion, Mordechai Ben-Porat, Moshe Dayan, Mathilda Guez, Yitzhak Navon, Shimon Peres, Yizhar Smilansky (replaced by Amos Degani), Mordechai Surkis, Tzvi Tzur (replaced by Aryeh Bahir) |
