Join forces
Labor, Meretz set to draw up deal
The leaders of Labor and Meretz are expected to meet over the weekend to draft an agreement to run on a joint list in the September 17 election, sources in both parties said on Wednesday.
New Labor chairman Amir Peretz and new Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz had what both termed a very positive and warm meeting that lasted an hour and 15 minutes late on Tuesday night. They agreed to meet again to negotiate an agreement, pending in-depth polls that Peretz will receive late Thursday or early Friday.
Meretz’s polls have already found that the two parties would do better running together than they would apart. Labor’s poll will also examine the possibility of adding former prime minister Ehud Barak’s Israel Democratic Party. However, a Midgam poll broadcast on Channel 12 on Wednesday found that Barak would not add voters.
“Those who think they can form a party and take Meretz voters away don’t know what real ideological leftists are,” a Meretz source said.
Labor sources said matters of principles have mostly been decided, but how a joint list would be built has not yet been discussed other than it would be led by Peretz.
Reports of a second meeting between Peretz and Barak were incorrect. Contacts between Meretz and Barak are going through Barak’s number-two, former deputy IDF chief of staff Yair Golan, and Horowitz’s number-three, MK Ilan Gilon.
In a message on Twitter, Barak thanked “hundreds of Labor and Meretz activists calling on us to merge our forces together.” He said the contacts are “continuing with full force” with Meretz and Peretz.
“We will do everything, and I mean everything, to bring about a full merger of the democratic camp,” he wrote. “That is a promise.”
But when told that Labor and Meretz officials believe the key element to uniting the democratic camp was Barak quitting the race, the former prime minister’s spokeswoman said that was not an option.
Barak’s associates said Peretz would eventually realize that a deal with Meretz would prevent him from taking voters away from the Right, and that he needs to join with Barak to guarantee he will cross the 3.25% electoral threshold.
“All Peretz’s talk about Labor winning 15 seats and taking Likudniks away has proven false, so it is time for him to come back to Barak and be more modest,” a source close to Barak said.
Peretz convened a group of former Labor Party ministers and MKs on Monday who told him not to make an agreement with Barak, who they said could not be trusted. Retiring MK Shelly Yacimovich delivered a similar message to Peretz when they met on Wednesday morning.
Labor will continue pursuing a merger with former MK Orly Levy-Abecassis’s Gesher Party, despite a Channel 12 report that said she prefers making a deal with Blue and White.