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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
The National Religious Party, Israel's largest religious party,
resulted in 1956 from the merger of its two historical antecedents,
Mizrahi (Spiritual Center--see Appendix B) and HaPoel HaMizrahi
(Spiritual Center Worker--see Appendix B). The NRP (as Mizrahi
prior to 1956) has participated in every coalition government since
independence. Invariably the Ministry of Religious Affairs, as well
as the Ministry of Interior, have been headed by Knesset members
nominated by this party.
Although the NRP increased from four to five Knesset seats in
the 1988 elections, it had not fully recovered from major political
and electoral setbacks suffered in the 1981 and 1984 elections. In
those elections, much of its previous electoral support shifted to
right-wing religio-nationalist parties. As a sign of its attempted
recovery, in July 1986 the NRP held its first party convention
since 1973. The long interval separating the two conventions was
caused by factional struggles between the younger and the veteran
leadership groups. In the 1986 convention, the NRP's second
generation of leaders, members of the Youth Faction, officially
took over the party's institutions and executive bodies. The new
NRP leader was Knesset member Zevulun Hammer, former minister of
education and culture in the Likud cabinet (1977-84) and secretary
general of the party (1984-86). In 1986 Hammer succeeded long-time
member Yosef Burg as minister of religious affairs in the National
Unity Government. Hammer and Yehuda Ben-Meir, coleader of the Youth
Faction until 1984, were among the founders of Gush Emunim in 1974
(see Extraparliamentary Religio-Nationalist Movements
, this ch.).
Both leaders somewhat moderated their views on national security,
territorial, and settlement issues following Israel's 1982 invasion
of Lebanon, but the NRP's declining political and electoral
position and the increasing radicalization of its religiously based
constituency led to a reversal in Hammer's views. As a result, in
the 1986 party convention the Youth Faction helped incorporate into
the NRP the religio-nationalist Morasha (Heritage), which was led
by Rabbi Chaim Druckman and held two seats in the Knesset. In
return, Rabbi Yitzhak Levi, the third candidate on the Morasha
Knesset list, became the NRP's new secretary general. Moroccan-born
Levi has been a fervent supporter of Gush Emunim and an advocate of
incorporating the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into a greater
Israel.
Until the 1986 party convention, the dominant faction in the
NRP was LaMifneh (To the Turning Point). The center-most faction,
LaMifneh advocated greater pragmatism and ideological pluralism.
Burg, a Knesset member since 1949, who had held a variety of
cabinet portfolios including interior (1974-84) and religious
affairs (1982-86), led LaMifneh. Burg and Rafael Ben-Natan, former
party organization strongman, were responsible for maintaining the
"historical partnership" with the Labor Party that officially ended
in 1977, but continued in some municipal councils and in the
Histadrut.
In the 1988 internal party elections, the NRP took a number of
steps to regain the support of segments of the Oriental Orthodox
electorate that were lost to Tami in 1981 and, to a lesser extent,
to Shas in 1988. The party also sought to regain the support of
right-wing religious ultranationalists. In the internal party
elections the NRP nominated Moroccan-born Avner Sciaki for the top
spot on its Knesset list, Zevulun Hammer for the second position,
and Hanan Porat, a leader of Gush Emunim and formerly of Tehiya, in
the third spot. As a result of these steps, the NRP attained
greater ideological homogeneity and competed with Tehiya and Kach
for the electoral support of the right-wing ultranationalist
religious community.
Data as of December 1988
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