United Workers Party

Mapam (, an acronym for , ) was a left-wing political party in Israel. It is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Meretz party. History 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 (On the Lookout). In the elections for the first Knesset, Mapam received 19 seats, making it the second-largest party after the mainstream Labor Zionist Mapai. The party did not allow non-Jews to be members at the time, but it 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 was affiliated). However, the Arab list failed to cross the 1% electoral threshold. After the elections, the party conducted extensive negotiations with Ben-Gurion for inclusion in the coalition government, but was eventually excluded. During the session it gained one seat when Eliezer Preminger joined after leaving Maki and then setting up his own party, the Hebrew Communists.