The prime minister of Israel is the head of government and chief executive of the State of Israel.
Ehud Barak is an Israeli former general and politician who served as the tenth prime minister from 1999 to 2001. He was leader of the Labor Party from 1997 until 2001 and again from 2007 until 2011. He previously held the posts of defense minister and deputy prime minister under Ehud Olmert and then in Benjamin Netanyahu's second government from 2007 to 2013. He attempted a political comeback, running in the September 2019 Israeli legislative election as the leader of a new party that he formed. His party merged with other parties to form an alliance called the Democratic Union, but the alliance did not win enough seats for him to become a member of the Knesset.
Shinui was a Zionist, secular, and anti-clerical free market liberal party and political movement in Israel. The party twice became the third-largest in the Knesset, but both occasions were followed by a split and collapse; in 1977, the party won 15 seats as part of the Democratic Movement for Change, but the alliance split in 1978, and Shinui was reduced to two seats at the next elections. In 2003, the party won 15 seats alone, but lost them all three years later after most of its MKs left to form new parties. The party was a member of Liberal International until 2009.
Eliyahu "Eli" Yishai is an Israeli politician. A former leader of Shas, he represented the party in the Knesset from 1996 until 2015, also holding several ministerial posts, including being Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Internal Affairs, and Minister of Industry, Trade, and Labor. In December 2014, he left Shas to establish the Yachad party.
The Center Party, originally known as Israel in the Center, was a short-lived political party in Israel. Formed in 1999 by former Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, the aim was to create a group of moderates to challenge Binyamin Netanyahu on the right and opposition leader Ehud Barak's Labor Party on the left.
Haim Ramon is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset between 1983 and 2009, and as both Vice Prime Minister and Minister in the Prime Minister's Office with responsibility for state policy.
Elections for the 17th Knesset were held in Israel on 28 March 2006. The voting resulted in a plurality of seats for the then-new Kadima party, followed by the Labor Party, and a major loss for the Likud party.
Legislative elections were held in Israel on 28 January 2003. The result was a resounding victory for Ariel Sharon's Likud.
Prime ministerial elections were held in Israel on 6 February 2001 following the resignation of the incumbent Prime Minister Ehud Barak on 9 December 2000. Barak stood for re-election against Likud's Ariel Sharon.
Early general elections for both the Prime Minister and the Knesset were held in Israel on 17 May 1999 following a vote of no confidence in the government; the incumbent Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ran for re-election.
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.
One Israel was an alliance of the Labor Party, Meimad and Gesher created to run for the 1999 Knesset elections.
Elections for the 18th Knesset were held in Israel on 10 February 2009. These elections became necessary due to the resignation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as leader of the Kadima party, and the failure of his successor, Tzipi Livni, to form a coalition government. Had Olmert remained in office or had Livni formed a coalition government, the elections would have been scheduled for 2010 instead.
The twenty-seventh government of Israel was formed by Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud on 18 June 1996. Although his Likud-Gesher-Tzomet alliance won fewer seats than Labor, Netanyahu formed the government after winning the country's first ever direct election for Prime Minister, narrowly defeating incumbent Shimon Peres. This government was the first formed by an Israeli national born in the state after independence in 1948.
The twenty-ninth government of Israel was formed by Ariel Sharon on 7 March 2001, following his victory over Ehud Barak in the special election for Prime Minister in February. It was the first, and to date only time an election for Prime Minister was held without parallel elections for the Knesset, and one of the first acts of the new government was to repeal the law which introduced separate elections. Despite his large margin of victory in the election, because there had been no Knesset elections, Sharon's Likud was not the largest party in the Knesset, resulting in the formation of a national unity coalition that at some point included Labor–Meimad, Shas, the Centre Party, the National Religious Party, United Torah Judaism, Yisrael BaAliyah, the National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu, the New Way and Gesher. Shas left the government on 23 May 2002, but returned on 3 June, whilst Labor–Meimad left on 2 November 2002.
The Thirty-second government of Israel, also known as the Second Netanyahu Government, was the largest cabinet in the country's history, in terms of the number of ministers: initially containing 30 ministers and nine deputy ministers, it later added another deputy prime minister as of May 2012 until he resigned in July 2012.
Independence was a political party in Israel, that was launched by Defense Minister Ehud Barak on 17 January 2011, after he and four other Labor Party MKs seceded from the caucus. Upon secession, the faction stated that it aimed to establish itself as a separate "centrist, Zionist, and democratic" political party. It was founded on the vestiges of the Third Way party. Nine days after Barak announced his retirement from politics, it was made public that Independence would not take part in the 2013 Knesset elections.
The Israeli Labor Party, commonly known as HaAvoda, is a social democratic and Zionist political party in Israel. The party was established in 1968 by a merger of Mapai, Ahdut HaAvoda, and Rafi. Until 1977, all Israeli prime ministers were affiliated with the Labor movement. The current party leader is Merav Michaeli, who was elected in January 2021.
Politics in Israel are dominated by Zionist parties. They traditionally fall into three camps, the first two being the largest: Labor Zionism, revisionist Zionism, and religious Zionism. There are also several non-Zionist Orthodox religious parties and non-Zionist secular left-wing groups, as well as non-Zionist and anti-Zionist Israeli Arab parties.
