Alignment (political Party) - First Alignment

First Alignment

The first incarnation of the Alignment, fully named the HaMa'arakh LeAhdut Poalei Eretz Yisrael (Hebrew: המערך לאחדות פועלי ארץ ישראל, lit. Alignment for the Unity of the Workers of the Land of Israel), was an alliance of Mapai and Ahdut HaAvoda formed to contest the 1965 Knesset elections. Its formation was in response to the merger of the two major right-wing parties in Israel, Herut and the Liberal Party to form Gahal, and to try to preserve the left's hegemony in Israeli politics.

In the elections, the Alignment won 36.7% of the vote and 45 of the 120 Knesset seats, enough to comfortably beat Gahal, which had only won 26, though not as many as Mapai had won in the 1951 and 1959 elections. The party's leader, Levi Eshkol formed a coalition government with the National Religious Party, Mapam, the Independent Liberals, Agudat Israel Workers and two Israeli Arab parties associated with the Alignment, Progress and Development and Cooperation and Brotherhood.

On 23 January 1968, Mapai and Ahdut HaAvoda merged with Rafi (though Rafi's leader David Ben-Gurion refused to join, and left to form his own faction, the National List) to form the Israeli Labor Party, and the Alignment ceased to exist.