Mapam was a Labor Zionist and democratic socialist political party in the State of Israel. Established shortly before Israeli independence in January 1948 as a merger between the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party , the Socialist Leaqgue, and the Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion movement, it initially represented a Marxist form of Labor Zionism, and was distinctive because of its critical support for the Soviet Union. It was once the second largest political force in Israel, drawing support from both the kibbutz and the urban working class movements, and initially benefited from popularity among the military elite.
Due to growing geopolitical tensions with the USSR in the 1950s and 1960s, the party suffered multiple splits and distanced itself from the Eastern Bloc, joining the Labor Party's Alignment in 1969, abandoning its Marxist positions and moving towards democratic socialism.
Mapam left the Alignment in 1984, when the Labor Party joined a national unity government with the right-wing Likud. It moved to a more peaceful stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, supporting a two-state solution with the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Following a poor showing in the 1988 elections, and the perceived need for a united left-wing Zionist party, it merged with the Ratz and Shinui parties to form the social-democratic Meretz in 1992, with Mapam dissolving altogether in 1997.
History Mapam was established in January 1948 by the merger of the kibbutz-based Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party, the non-kibbutz-based Socialist League, and the Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement. The party's orientation was more Marxist and left-wing than that of the larger Mapai party, and it was closely associated with the Kibbutz Artzi Federation of the Hashomer Hatzair movement. It also continued a Hashomer Hatzair-affiliated publication as the Al HaMishmar newspaper. From 1951 to 1979, the party also published Al-Mirsad ("Observation Post"), an Arabic-language newspaper similar in name to its Hebrew counterpart. It also published the Yiddish-language Yisroel Shtimme Israel Shtime from 1956 to late in 1997.
The new party was part of the 1948 provisional government with a policy toward Arabs that differed from that of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Its executive committee promoted Jewish–Arab coexistence, opposed the expulsion of civilians and supported the Palestinian right of return after the Nakba. Aharon Cohen, head of the party's Arab Affairs Department, authored the policy statement "Our Policy Towards Arabs During the War" in June 1948, emphasising these principles.Morris, pp. 142, 159. The party opposed the destruction of Arab villages and cabinet member Aharon Zisling raised related concerns in government meetings.Morris, p. 162. "destruction of Arab villages" appears on agenda five times from 16 to 30 June. Ben-Gurion criticised Mapam's stance, citing the Battle of Mishmar HaEmek and saying: "They faced a cruel reality ... [and] saw that there was [only] one way and that was to expel the Arab villagers and burn the villages. And they did this, and they were the first to do this."Morris, p. 116. Though the Haganah had destroyed a large number of houses in Caesarea 5 February 1948. p. 54.
Mapam initially opposed establishing settlements on depopulated Arab land, though this conflicted with the settlement activities of Kibbutz Artzi, which was ideologically aligned with the party. Of 12 new settlements created during May and June 1948, six were Mapam-related groups.Morris, p. 183. In August 1948, proposals were put forward for the creation of 32 new settlements, 27 of which were beyond the proposed United Nations partition line. A compromise policy was adopted, allowing new settlements on the condition that "surplus land" would remain for the possible return of displaced Arabs.Morris, p. 185. Over time, the party shifted its stance the right of return, eventually supporting restrictions tied to the end of hostilities and to individuals deemed "peace-minded".Morris, p. 291. With the explosion of opposition to the Government's proposal to the United Nations in July 1949 that 100,000 Palestinians might be allowed to return, the issue of return quietly dropped.Morris, p. 280.
The gulf between policy makers in the executive and Mapam members who dominated the leadership of the armed forces was revealed following the military operations in the autumn of 1948. In early November the editor of Al HaMishmar, Eliezer Pra'i, received a letter describing events at al-Dawayima. There followed a meeting of the Political Committee on 11 November 1948, which was briefed by recently ousted Chief of Staff of the Haganah, Yisrael Galili, about the killing of civilians during Operations Yoav and Hiram. Cohen led a call for an independent inquiry.Morris, p. 232. Cohen's notes from this meeting and the letter sent to Pra'i are practically the only contemporary Israeli records of these events in the public domain. The problem for Mapam was that the commanders of these operations were senior Mapam members Yitzhak Sadeh and Moshe Carmel. It was agreed to accept Ben-Gurion's internal inquiry. In December 1948 party co-leader Meir Ya'ari publicly criticised the Israel Defense Forces for using the expulsion of civilians as an "imperative of strategy". This was probably directed at Mapam member Yigal Allon, who had been chief of operations during Operation Danny.Morris, p. 211. 12 December 1948 at Kibbutz Artzi Council. "I am appalled." A memo, probably written by Allon, had argued that the refugees clogged roads, caused economic problems, damaged moral and would lead to anti-government demonstrations.
In the 1949 Constituent Assembly elections, Mapam won 19 seats, becoming the second-largest party in the Knesset after Mapai. At the time Mapam did not permit non-Jews to become members and instead sponsored an Arab satellite list, the Popular Arab Bloc, which failed to pass the 1% electoral threshold. Although Mapam held coalition talks with Ben-Gurion, it was excluded from the first government.
In the years following Israel's independence, Mapam benefitted from having comprised the majority of the Palmach, the elite forces of the Haganah during the 1948 Palestine war.
During the first Knesset, Mapam gained an additional seat when Eliezer Preminger joined after leaving Maki and then setting up his own party, the Hebrew Communists.
In the 1951 elections Mapam was reduced to 15 seats. That Knesset included Rostam Bastuni, the first Arab to represent a Zionist party. The far-left of Mapam, consisting of Avraham Berman, Bastuni and Moshe Sneh left Mapam's Knesset Faction to establish the Left Faction in 1952, although they remained Mapam members. The Left Faction was more pro-Soviet and more willing to compromise with Arabs than the Mapam party line.
The 1952 Slánský trial severely shook the party's faith in the Soviet Union. The show trials, in which mostly Jewish leaders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia were purged, falsely implicated Mapam's envoy in Prague, Mordechai Oren, as part of a Zionist conspiracy.
The ideological shift led to several splits. On 26 December 1952, Mapam's Council convened to vote on motions where the Left Faction found themselves in the minority. Berman and Sneh were dismissed from their positions in the party committee, which they unsuccessfully appealed the decision, after which they accused Mapam of being controlled by 'Mapai agents for the benefit and enjoyment of the bourgeoisie'. On 28 January 1953, Mapam voted to expel Berman and Sneh for their 'fundamental opposition to the socialist Zionist principles' of the party, for trying to 'undermine the party's institutions' and for supporting the ruling of the Prague Trials.
Hannah Lamdan and David Livschitz created their own party, the Faction independent of Ahdut HaAvoda, which lasted for a year before merging into Mapai in early 1954. Afterwards, other party members left to recreate Ahdut HaAvoda, taking four MKs with them, though the Knesset speaker did not recognize the group as an independent party during the Knesset session. It also displeased the USSR. Bastuni later returned to Mapam while Berman and Sneh eventually joined Maki. By the end of the second Knesset, Mapam's strength had dropped to seven seats. The party won nine seats in the 1955 elections and having distanced itself from the Soviet Union, joined Ben-Gurion's coalition governments.
Following these events and Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, Mapam ceased to support the USSR, and it began to moderate its Marxist-Zionist policies toward democratic socialism.
In 1959 Mapam and Ahdut HaAvoda voted against the government's decision to sell arms to West Germany, collapsing the government and leading to Ben-Gurion's brief resignation.
In the 1959 elections the party retained its nine seats, and despite their previous differences, were included in Ben-Gurion's coalition. In the 1961 elections it again won nine seats, but this time was not part of the governing coalition. The 1965 elections saw Mapam lose a seat, dropping to eight mandates, but enter the coalition government.
Alignment In 1969 Mapam entered into an alliance with the Israeli Labor Party, forming the Alignment, which won 56 of 120 Knesset seats in the 1969 elections, the highest total ever achieved by a single electoral list. At the time, Soviet commentators called Mapam "one of the most reactionary ones among the left-socialist parties".Mezhdunarodnaya Zizhn—cited in edition Välispanoraam 1972, Tallinn, 1973, lk 147 (Foreign Panorama 1972)
By the 1970s, some former left-wing Mapam members, including Walid Haj Yahia, Yair Tzaban, Gadi Yatziv, associated themselves with the dovish left-wing, and were founding members of the Left Camp of Israel (Sheli) in 1977, which was pitted against Mapam by its own members as well as political commentators. Sheli chairman Meir Pa'il accused Mapam of 'riding' the increasingly moderate Alignment in order to not 'struggle' in elections. Sheli quickly began to disintegrate due to factional struggles and the Lebanon War, with Haj Yahia, Tzaban and Yatziv returning to Mapam.
Mapam briefly broke away from the Alignment during the eighth Knesset (following the 1973 Israeli legislative election), but returned shortly afterward. Mapam cemented its democratic socialist turn by joining the Socialist International in 1983.
The party then remained part of the Alignment until after the 1984 elections, when it broke away due to anger over Shimon Peres's decision to form a national unity government with Likud, and began to support a two-state solution. Mapam left the Alignment with six MKs, but in July 1988, this was reduced to five when Muhammed Wattad defected to Hadash, as he was unsatisfied with Mapam's lack of Arab representation.
Decline and merger In their last ever solo campaign, for the 1988 election, Mapam campaigned on the increasing cost of housing, on the economic crisis that the Alignment presided over, and the urgent need for a peace deal. Before the campaigns, talks to form a Mapam-Ratz joint list failed. When Ratz signed a surplus vote agreement with the Alignment, Shem-Tov accused them of wanting to "remove Mapam from the political scene", to which Ratz leader Shulamit Aloni responded by saying that "Mapam's panic is understandable. It is a spoiled party, rich in assets and jobs, which fears any young, fresh organization without vested economic interests that comes to fight with clean hands." She also highlighted the inevitability of the two parties becoming allies, comparing Mapam to the biblical character Saul throwing his spear at David.
Despite Mapam's perceived organisational advantage as a veteran party, opinion polls in the weeks preceding the election predicted them only winning two seats, while Ratz ascended in the polls, with a maximum prediction of eight seats.