In Meretz’s Tuesday primary, a battle for the future face of Israel’s left

By Tuesday evening, the Meretz party will have a new leader, as 18,500 registered party members will choose between the classic left-wing positions espoused by former party chief Zehava Galon and an updated look proposed by lawmaker Yair Golan.

Galon is a 16-year veteran of the Knesset who led Meretz from 2013 to 2019 and was called out of retirement by concerns that Golan would change the face of what Galon calls an “Israeli party” that has broad, progressive values. Golan, a former Israel Defense Forces general, wants Meretz to be a “Zionist left” party that focuses primarily on separating from the Palestinians.

In anticipation of the November 1 elections, Galon and Golan are facing off to fill the vacuum left by Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, who stepped down as party head following a rocky year in the outgoing coalition. The rest of Meretz’s Knesset slate, currently polling between five and six seats, will also be determined by Tuesday’s primary.

Galon is the institutional candidate, woven into the fabric of Meretz since its 1992 founding as a left-wing political alliance. Among the features she defines as part of “Meretz’s DNA,” Galon is seeking to enact a broad, progressive platform, touching on issues including social democratic economics, minority rights, Arab-Jewish partnership, and a diplomatic solution to Palestinian national aspirations.

“We are a party that sees all of the rights intertwined with each other. We don’t talk about ‘separation from the Palestinians,’ we talk about negotiations and understandings, we talk about maintaining all human rights for everyone,” Galon said in a Saturday interview with Channel 12, adding to Army Radio on Monday that she wanted a “diplomatic solution” to the conflict with the Palestinians, “not a unilateral” one.

Golan, on the other hand, has argued that Meretz’s current self-conception is elitist and prevents the party from reaching its full potential.

On Saturday, he framed the primary as a contest “between the worldview of a small, exclusive, capable left that doesn’t want to grow and my view of the left as a Zionist left, as a camp that will be rich in power and strength, that aspires to leadership and knows how to lead.”

He followed those comments up on Sunday, telling Walla that Meretz has an image of being “a closed, exclusive and sour” Tel Aviv-centric party.

In part, Golan draws support for his change argument from Meretz’s consistently small size — it is again hovering not far above the 3.25 percent electoral threshold necessary to enter the Knesset. But polling over the last month has shown Galon’s return could draw a full extra seat.

Golan, a former IDF deputy chief of staff and senior military commander in the West Bank, wants to refresh and streamline Meretz’s goals. He wants a clear focus on “separation from the Palestinians,” which he said in July should be the central banner around which the party rallies.

“When I hear [Yair Golan] say that the issues we deal with are esoteric, that’s not Meretz. There’s the National Unity party,” Galon said on Saturday, arguing that Golan’s platform would change Meretz’s values.

Golan has also pressed his vision of Meretz as a “Zionist left” party, a line with which some longtime Arab members – including retiring minister Essawi Frej – have taken issue.

Rather than identifying Jewish national aspirations with “Zionist,” Galon prefers the term “Israeli party” to accommodate Meretz’s broader membership.

“I am a Zionist. All past Meretz heads were Zionists. But we are partners in a leftist party that defines itself as an Israeli party, that has Arab partners within it. I don’t expect Essawi Frej to define himself as a Zionist,” Galon said on Saturday.

Golan was first brought into Meretz by Horowitz in 2020 and Tuesday will be the first time he runs for a position in an open primary, as opposed to being placed in a reserved slot. He admits he comes from outside the Meretz establishment, a fact he says can bring a needed “renewal,” countering Galon’s charge that he represents a change in values.

Meretz has a reputation for being skittish about people coming from outside the party and not following the party line. Part of the decision-making for which Horowitz absorbed the most flak was placing Arab lawmaker Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi on a sweetheart spot in Meretz’s list, only to watch her flout party discipline and contribute to the disintegration of the coalition.

Golan has argued that Meretz needs to draw new communities, including Bedouin and kibbutz members. But last week, the Kan public broadcaster said the party disqualified about 1,000 new Bedouin Meretz members on the grounds that they were inappropriately registered by a third party.

He also frames the November general election as a fight against a “corrupt and messianic right” in what is perhaps his closest messaging to Galon, who also is staunchly against the return of a right-religious government under longtime leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

While the Galon-Golan leadership race will determine how Meretz members want the party to look moving forward, 25 candidates will compete for limited spots in the party’s Knesset slate. Returning politicians Horowitz, Michal Rozin, Gaby Lasky, Mossi Raz, and Ali Salalha will vie with Golan and non-lawmakers for the four to five realistic spots. Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg, herself a former party head, joins Frej in sitting out the next Knesset session.

Because Galon is only running for leadership and not for a spot in Meretz’s slate, she won’t take a Knesset seat if she isn’t victorious. Golan has criticized her decision to run only for the top spot.

Under Horowitz, Meretz returned to power in 2021 for the first time in two decades, but, as with several of the coalition’s member parties, it made ideological compromises for the sake of joining the big-tent government it helped form. Ultimately, those compromises were too much for several of the coalition’s lawmakers, among them Meretz’s MK Rinawie Zoabi, who helped hasten the government’s collapse by eschewing coalition discipline.

As the majority of primary votes are expected to be cast electronically, Meretz expects to release results late on Tuesday evening. In addition to Meretz, the right-wing Religious Zionism party will hold its primary on Tuesday.