Independent Liberals (Israel)


The Independent Liberals were a political party in Israel between the 1960s and 1980s.

History

The Independent Liberals party was formed during the fifth Knesset in the aftermath of the merger of the Liberal Party and Herut. Seven of the 17 Liberal Party MKs led by former Minister of Justice, Pinchas Rosen, disagreed with the merger and founded a new party in response. Almost all of the dissenters were former members of the Progressive Party, which had merged with the General Zionists to create the Liberal Party during the fourth Knesset, and also included Rachel Cohen-Kagan, formerly an MK for WIZO.
The party agreed to have the Israeli participation in Liberal International shared equally with the Liberal Party.
In their first electoral test, the 1965 elections, the Independent Liberals won 5 seats and joined Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir's coalition governments, with Moshe Kol appointed Minister of Tourism and Minister of Development. During the sixth Knesset they lost one seat when Yizhar Harari left the party to join the Alignment.
In the 1969 elections the party won four seats and were again included in Meir's coalition government. Kol retained his post as Minister of Tourism. The party also won four seats in the 1973 elections and were included in both of Meir and Yitzhak Rabin's coalition governments. Kol again retained his post as Minister of Tourism and Gideon Hausner was made a Minister without Portfolio. However, they lost one seat when Hillel Seidel defected to Likud.
The 1977 elections saw the party win only one seat, barely crossing the 1% electoral threshold. The party was also excluded from Menachem Begin's right-wing coalition. The 1981 elections saw the party fail to cross the electoral threshold and disappear from the Knesset. For the 1984 elections the party ran as a faction of the Alignment, with its leader Yitzhak Artzi given 44th place on the Alignment list.
On March 15, 1988, near the end of the 11th Knesset, Artzi left the Alginment and joined the Shinui parliamentary group. In the 1988 election, the Independent Liberals ran as part of the Center–Shinui Movement with Shinui and the Center Movement, but the combined list won only two seats and none were for Independent Liberal members. The Independent Liberal party merged with the Labor Party in 1992.

Election results