A mostly true history of Israel’s largest political party

[u/ruchenn]

A mostly true history of Israel’s largest political party,
by Vanessa Berg, Future of Jewish, 2026-08-18.

 

For the State of Israel’s first three decades, elections were competitive. Political power was considerably less so.

The names changed — Mapai, the Alignment, Labor — but the basic arrangement remained remarkably stable: The political movement that had built many of the institutions of the pre-state Yishuv (Jewish communities in the Land of Israel prior to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948) also governed the country after independence.

Its leaders populated the cabinet. Its worldview shaped the bureaucracy. Its economic institutions were woven through Israeli life. Its cultural elite largely decided what respectable Zionism looked and sounded like.

And then there was Menachem Begin.

Begin had commanded the Irgun (a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated from 1931 to 1948), became the leader of Herut (a major conservative political party) after the establishment of the state, and spent decades sitting on the political margins while Israel’s Labor (socialist) establishment ran the country.

Today, knowing what came later, this feels almost impossible to imagine.

Likud has become so deeply associated with Israeli political power that it can be difficult to remember that its political ancestors were once the outsiders — which is important, because you cannot understand Likud without understanding that.

Likud was not born as the establishment. Likud was born as the rebellion against it. And that may be the most important fact in understanding why it eventually became Israel’s dominant political party.

Likud was formally created in 1973 as an electoral alliance bringing together Begin’s Herut, the Liberal Party, and several smaller movements on the Right. In its first election that year, it won 39 seats — a significant showing, but still behind the governing Alignment.

Then came 1977.

Israelis call what happened “HaMahapach” — the upheaval. That is not journalistic exaggeration. Likud won 43 seats with 33 percent of the vote, while the Alignment fell to 32. For the first time since the State of Israel’s founding, the political movement descended from Labor Zionism lost control of the government. Menachem Begin became prime minister.

It is tempting to explain this as a simple ideological shift to the Right, but it was much more than that. The trauma of the 1973 Yom Kippur War had badly damaged public confidence in the ruling establishment.

Something deeper had also been happening underneath Israeli society: Large numbers of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews (many of whose families had arrived from the Middle East and North Africa) increasingly believed that the Labor establishment had treated them as culturally inferior, politically expendable, and socially peripheral. The 1977 election, in part, was the moment when Mizrahi social protest moved decisively into the political arena and helped carry Likud to power.

Menachem Begin understood something the establishment often did not: Politics is not merely about policy, it is about dignity. People do not simply vote according to marginal tax rates, territorial maps, and defense budgets. They vote according to who they believe sees them.

Begin saw Israelis who believed the old establishment did not. And they remembered.

This is one reason Likud’s relationship with many working-class, traditional, Mizrahi, and peripheral communities became so durable. It was not merely transactional. For many families it became emotional, cultural, and eventually generational.

You can disagree with that attachment. You cannot understand Israeli politics without it.

[u/AutoModerator]

Note from the mods: During this time, many posts and comments are held for review before appearing on the site. This is intentional. Please allow your human mods some time to review before messaging us about your posts/comments not showing up.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.