From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Knesset committee chair rejects Labor party request to change name to Democrats
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Coalition whip and Knesset House Committee chairman Ofir Katz rejects the Labor party’s request to officially change its name to The Democrats.
Labor began calling itself by the new name following its merger with the left-wing Meretz party last June. Meretz currently does not have any representatives in the Knesset.
Addressing Labor’s request to make the name change official, Katz slams the liberal faction as antidemocratic and violent.
“Those who try to overthrow an elected government with violence, by calling for rebellion and a siege of the Knesset — are anything but democrats,” Katz states, adding that party chair Yair Golan should “change the name to the Anarchist Party, and then we will happily approve it.”
Following Katz’s statement, Labor MK Efrat Rayten withdraws her party’s request.
“Why is the Likud afraid of the Democrats? In the midst of a war, while hostages are being held, the Likud party mobilized to fight changing the name of the Democratic faction,” she tweets. “A technical change that was supposed to take five minutes turned into two hours of undemocratic and bullying discussion,” she writes, accusing the coalition of spreading “falsehoods, conspiracies [and] slander.”
“If the Likud panicked at the word ‘democracy,’ we probably chose the right name.”
The Times of Israel Community.