As Labor fades, new leftist movement steps into the breach

Leftist activists including a large of number of artists and celebrities gathered in Tel Aviv on Friday for the founding conference of a new left-wing movement whose aim is to become a significant factor in Israeli politics.

The as-ye-unnamed new movement will be spearheaded by the existing left-wing Meretz party, and is said to incorporate other movements.

Gatherers said the need for such a party was particularly important because of their disappointment in Labor, which has historically been the most important left-of-center party and whose current standing in the polls is at an all-time low.

"The Labor party is no longer the leviathan is used to be," Prof. Avner Ben Zaken, one of the new movement's leaders, said. "That leviathan is dead but its corpse still occupies a very important place in politics."

The event, held at the Tzavta theater in the heart of Tel Aviv's artistic scene, attracted many celebrities including authors Amos Oz and Orly Castel-Bloom, actors Gila Almagor, Gavri Banai and Ilan Dar, guitarist David Broza, painter Yair Garbuz and historian Prof. Aviad Kleinberg.

The attendees debated the nature of the new party, which has not yet been clearly defined. Some of the speakers at the event such as author Nir Bar'am and journalist Anat Sargusti stressed the importance of social-democratic ideals to the movement. "Israel needs a new covenant between the state and its youth," Bar'am said.

Prof. Fania Oz-Salzberger, the daughter of Amos Oz and a history lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, spoke out against violence committed out by settlers in the West Bank. "For the past eight years not enough has been done for peace," she said.

Meretz leader MK Haim "Jumis" Oron criticized Labor and Kadima, and predicted that the new social-democratic movement will become a significant power in Israeli politics. "Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak are Bibi's tools," Oron said, referring to Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu's nickname. Oron invited the green movement to join the ranks of the new movement, and said that negotiations between Meretz and the new movement about a joint election slate will commence after Meretz holds it primary on December 14.