External links
- Members of the First Knesset Knesset website
The 120 members of the first Knesset were elected on 25 January 1949. The breakdown by party was as follows:
| MK | Replaced | Party | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eliyahu Mazur | Moshe Kelmer | United Religious Front | 11 March 1949 |
| Yitzhak Kanav | Avraham Taviv | Mapai | 20 April 1950 |
| Herzl Berger | Yehudit Simhonit | Mapai | 5 February 1951 |
| Jenia Tversky | Heshel Frumkin | Mapai | 5 February 1951 |
| Yisrael Yeshayahu | Aryeh Sheftel | Mapai | 12 February 1951 |
| Baruch Osnia | Abba Hushi | Mapai | 12 February 1951 |
| Menachem Ratzon | Dov Bar-Nir | Mapam | 10 April 1951 |
| David Livschitz | Yitzhak Tabenkin | Mapam | 12 April 1951 |
| Menachem Cohen | David Remez | Mapai | 19 May 1951 |
| Rafael Bash | Yosef-Michael Lamm | Mapai | 21 May 1951 |
The prime minister of Israel is the head of government and chief executive of the State of Israel.
The Israeli system of government is based on parliamentary democracy. The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of government and leader of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the Knesset. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The political system of the State of Israel and its main principles are set out in 11 Basic Laws. Israel does not have a written constitution.
The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government.
Elections in Israel are based on nationwide proportional representation. The electoral threshold is currently set at 3.25%, with the number of seats a party receives in the Knesset being proportional to the number of votes it receives. The Knesset is elected for a four-year term, although most governments have not served a full term and early elections are a frequent occurrence. Israel has a multi-party system based on coalition governments as no party has ever won a majority of seats in a national election, although the Alignment briefly held a majority following its formation by an alliance of several different parties prior to the 1969 elections. Suffrage is universal to all Israeli citizens above the age of 18. Israeli citizens living abroad have to travel to Israel in order to vote. Voting booths are made available on Israeli ships. Elections are overseen by the Central Elections Committee, and are held according to the Knesset Elections Law.
The deputy prime minister of Israel falls into four categories; Designated Acting Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Vice Prime Minister and Alternate Prime Minister. Vice Prime Minister is honorary and extra-constitutional position, but entitle the office-holder to a place in the cabinet. Deputy Prime Minister, Designated Acting Prime Minister, and Alternate Prime Minister are constitutional positions.
Gesher, officially the Gesher National Social Movement, was a political party in Israel between 1996 and 2003. It formed when David Levy led a split from the Israeli center-right party Likud. Gesher helped to form coalition governments led by both Likud and the left-wing Labor Party, but never gained significant power. The party was eventually disbanded as Levy returned to Likud. In 2019, David Levy's daughter, Orly Levy set up a similar party named Gesher, which advocates for many of the same policies supported by her father.
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The Alignment was the name of two political alliances in Israel, both of which ended their existence by merging into the Israeli Labor Party.
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Orly Levy-Abekasis is an Israeli politician who currently serves as a member of the Knesset for Likud. Formerly a model, Levy-Abekasis first entered the Knesset in 2009 as a representative of Yisrael Beiteinu, but left the party in 2017 to sit as an independent. In 2019, she formed her own party, Gesher, to contest the April 2019 elections. Although the party failed to win a seat, she returned to the Knesset following the September 2019 elections, in which Gesher ran together with the Labor Party. In May 2020 she was appointed by Prime Minister Netanyahu as the newly created Minister for Community Empowerment and Advancement.
The seventeenth government of Israel was formed by Yitzhak Rabin on 3 June 1974, following the resignation of Prime Minister Golda Meir on 11 April and Rabin's election as Labor Party leader on 26 April. It was the first time an Israeli government had been led by a native-born Israeli.
Tamar "Tami" Zandberg is an Israeli politician. She currently serves as Minister of Environmental Protection and previously served as a member of the Knesset for Meretz from 2013 to 2021, leading the party between 2018 and 2019.
Meretz is a left-wing political party in Israel. The party was formed in 1992 by the merger of Ratz, Mapam and Shinui, and was at its peak between 1992 and 1996 when it had 12 seats. It currently has no seats in the Knesset, following its failure to pass the electoral threshold in the 2022 elections.
Legislative elections were held in Israel on 1 November 2022 to elect the 120 members of the 25th Knesset (MK). The results saw the right-wing national camp of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu achieving a parliamentary majority, amid losses for left-wing and Arab parties, as well as far-right gains.
