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Mapam

Mapam
מפ"ם
Leader Meir Ya'ari (1948–73)
Ya'akov Hazan
Meir Talmi
Victor Shem-Tov
Yair Tzaban
Haim Oron
Founded January 1948
Dissolved 1997
Merger of Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party and Ahdut HaAvoda
Merged into Meretz
Newspaper Al HaMishmar (Hebrew)
Al-Mirsad (Arabic)
Israel Shtime (Yiddish)
Ideology Socialism
Labor Zionism
Political position Left-wing
Alliance Alignment (1965–1984)
Meretz (1992–1997)
Most MKs 20 (1949–1951)
Fewest MKs 3 (1988–1992)
Election symbol
מ, מפם

Mapam (Hebrew: מפ"ם‎‎, an acronym for Mifleget HaPoalim HaMeuhedet (Hebrew: מפלגת הפועלים המאוחדת‎‎), lit. United Workers Party, Arabic: حزب العمال الموحد‎‎, abbreviated 'مبام') was a left-wing political party in Israel. The party is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Meretz party.

Mapam was formed by a January 1948 merger of the kibbutz-based Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party, the non-kibbutz-based Socialist League, and the left-Labor Zionist Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement. The party was originally Marxist-Zionist in its outlook, and represented the left-wing Kibbutz Artzi movement. It also took over the Hashomer Hatzair-affiliated newspaper Al HaMishmar.

In the elections for the first Knesset, Mapam received 19 seats, making it the second largest party after the mainstream Labor Zionist Mapai. As the party did not allow non-Jews to be members at the time, it had also set up an Arab list, the Popular Arab Bloc, to contest the elections (a tactic also used by Mapai, with whom the Democratic List of Nazareth were affiliated). However, the Arab list failed to cross the 1% electoral threshold.

The party's pro-Soviet views did not endear them to Ben-Gurion, and they were not included in the governing coalition. During the session they gained one seat when Eliezer Preminger joined after leaving Maki and then setting up his own party, the Hebrew Communists.


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