David Levy is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset between 1969 and 2006, as well as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Immigrant Absorption, Minister of Housing and Construction and as a Minister without Portfolio. Although most of his time as a Knesset member was spent with Likud, he also led the breakaway Gesher faction, which formed part of Ehud Barak's Labor-led government between 1999 and 2001.
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.
The Green Party, formerly the Green Movement, is a social-environmental movement and political party in Israel. After briefly considering running independently in the 2020 Israeli legislative election, the party decided against it, realizing they had little to no chance of passing the 3.25% threshold needed to enter the Knesset. Stav Shaffir, the party's leader, urged supporters to vote for a left leaning party to help defeat Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ilan Gilon was an Israeli politician. He served as a member of the Knesset for the Meretz and the Democratic Union alliance in three spells between 1999 and 2021.
Orly Levy-Abekasis is an Israeli politician and former member of the Knesset. 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.
Stav Shaffir is an Israeli politician. She is the leader of the Green Party and was a member of the Knesset for the Democratic Union alliance. She came to national prominence as one of the leaders of the 2011 Israeli social justice protests, focusing on housing, public services, income inequality and democracy, and later became spokeswoman of the movement. She was subsequently elected to the Knesset as a member of the Labor Party in 2013. The party contested the 2015 elections as part of the Zionist Union alliance, with Shaffir retaining her seat. She was re-elected again in the April 2019 elections, in which Labor ran alone. However, after losing a Labor leadership election to Amir Peretz in June 2019, she left the party and resigned from the Knesset and became head of the Green Movement. Her new party formed the Democratic Union alongside Meretz and the Israel Democratic Party. Shaffir lost her Knesset seat in the 2020 election.
Merav Michaeli is an Israeli politician, journalist, TV anchor, radio broadcaster, feminist, and activist. She is the leader of the Israeli Labor Party, and in her last government position she was the Minister of Transport in the thirty-sixth government of Israel.
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.
Early legislative elections were held in Israel on 9 April 2019 to elect the 120 members of the 21st Knesset. Elections had been due in November 2019, but were brought forward following a dispute between members of the current government over a bill on national service for the ultra-Orthodox population, as well as impending corruption charges against incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The thirty-fifth government of Israel, or the Netanyahu–Gantz government, was the government of Israel which was sworn in on 17 May 2020 and dissolved on 13 June 2021.
Snap legislative elections were held in Israel on 17 September 2019 to elect the 120 members of the 22nd Knesset. Following the previous elections in April, incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a governing coalition for a second consecutive time. On 30 May, the Knesset voted to dissolve itself and trigger new elections, in order to prevent Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz from being appointed Prime Minister-designate. This election marked the first time the Knesset voted to dissolve itself before a government had been formed.
Polling for the 17 September 2019 Israeli legislative election began on 26 May 2019.
Gesher was a liberal Zionist, social liberal, and centrist political party in Israel, established in December 2018 by former Yisrael Beitenu MK Orly Levy. The party focused primarily on economic and cost-of-living issues. The name of the party is a reference to the party founded by Orly's father, David Levy.
Legislative elections were held in Israel on 2 March 2020 to elect members of the twenty-third Knesset. The result was initially a stalemate, which was resolved when Likud and Blue & White reached a coalition agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, the premiership would rotate between Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, with Gantz given the new position of Alternate Prime Minister until November 2021. These elections followed the continued political deadlock after the April and September 2019 Knesset elections.
The 2019 Israeli Labor Party leadership election was held following the announcement of the resignation of Avi Gabbay as leader of the Labor Party on 7 June 2019, after almost two years as leader, which he led into its worst election result in its history during the April 2019 Israeli legislative election.
The September 2019 Israeli legislative election was held using closed list proportional representation. Each party presented a list of candidates to the Central Elections Committee prior to the election.
The Democratic Union was a liberal-left-wing political alliance in Israel formed between Meretz, Israel Democratic Party, Labor defector Stav Shaffir, and the Green Movement that ran in the September 2019 Israeli legislative election. On 19 December 2019, Labor defector Stav Shaffir and her party, the Green Movement, announced a press conference in which she would leave the alliance to run independently in the 2020 Israeli legislative election. The Democratic Union initially announced on 7 January 2020 that it will run in the 2020 election, this time including Meretz and Democratic Choice.
Labor-Gesher-Meretz or Emet, known as Labor-Meretz from March to April 2020, was an Israeli centre-left electoral list composed of three parties – the Israeli Labor Party, Gesher and Meretz. The list ran in the 2020 legislative election, led by Amir Peretz, chairman of the Labor Party. The list received seven seats in the election, of which three were for Labor, one was for Gesher and three were for Meretz.
