Former Yamina MK launches new Economic Freedom party
Carrie Keller-Lynn is a former political and legal correspondent for The Times of Israel

Former Yamina MK Abir Kara launches his Economic Freedom party, backed by small business owners whose interests he endeavored to represent in the outgoing Knesset.
“I believe in a true free market. I am for the social right. I’m in favor of lowering the cost of living, helping to the weak in society through a free economy, which is a necessary condition to increase the welfare of every citizen,” Kara says, announcing Economic Freedom as the banner under which he will advance these goals.
Israel’s rapidly spiraling cost of living is a top-of-mind issue for voters ahead of November’s Knesset election, with Tel Aviv topping global charts as the most expensive city and inflation passing five percent, with housing prices rising 17.8% in the past year alone.
Kara split from Yamina after negotiations broke down with party leader Ayelet Shaked over platform priorities and his placement on the electoral slate of Zionist Spirit, a merger of Yamina and another small right-wing faction.
Drawing much of his support from small business owners and independent contractors, Kara says that he is running to continue to be an advocate for their interests.
“In one year, we led seven huge reforms: in business licensing, imports, standardizations, [canceling the need to get fire department approval for business licensing], [creating] a safety net for the self-employed, customs policy, and reducing regulation,” he says. “We are gathered here today in order to continue the tremendous momentum.”
The newly minted party leader blames regulation, import restrictions and market concentration for much of Israel’s economic problems, tying these conditions to the country’s socialist past.
“The Israeli economy has not yet disengaged from its Mapainik foundations, from the red notebook, which in recent years has become the blue notebook,” Kara says.
Democratic socialist Mapai was the leading party in Israel’s foundational years, headed by longtime leader David Ben-Gurion. As part of the system it perpetuated, many social services and access to certain jobs were dependent upon party membership, symbolized by the now defunct red notebook.
A Kara spokesman explains the lawmaker is using the analogy to imply that the new socialists are in fact the right-wing Likud party, which did not dismantle the economic structure that Kara criticizes during its recent 12-year stint as Israel’s ruling party.
“Israel is not a country that has a Histadrut, Israel is a Histadrut that has a state!” he adds, in reference to his perception of union influence on politics and the economy.