Progress and Work

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Progress and Work (Hebrew: קידמה ועבודה‎, Kidma VeAvoda, Arabic: الزراعة والتطوير‎) was a political party in Israel.

[edit] History

The Progress and Work party was an Israeli Arab organisation formed to fight the 1951 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 only one seat, taken by its leader, Salah-Hassan Hanifes. Because of its association with Mapai, the party joined the governing coaltion in all four governments of the second Knesset.

In the 1955 elections the party won two seats. Tzalach Saliman took the second seat, and the party was again part of the coalition.

In 1959, a falling out between Hanifes and Mapai led to Hanifes setting up a new party, the Independent Faction for Israeli Arabs to fight the 1959 elections. However, it did not pass the electoral threshold and did not appear in the Knesset. The Progress and Work party also failed to pass the threshold and subsequently disappeared.

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