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Israeli Left fail to agree merger

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Labour and Meretz were unable to agree a merger deal before the deadline to register parties with the Central Elections Committee.

Following news of the new Blue and White party led by Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid on Thursday morning, Meretz leader Tamar Zandberg called for a merger between Meretz and Labour.

“In light of the union on the centre, it’s time for a union on the left in order to establish a centre-left government. Meretz will turn every stone to make this happen,” Zandberg said. “We have 12 hours and we’re inviting Avi Gabbay to the discussion table immediately.”

After reported talks between the two leaders, the Labour Party released a statement that said: “After a thorough examination by the Labour Party today, we came to the conclusion that a merger between Labour and Meretz would be less than the sum of its parts. A combination of the two movements does not increase our strength — on the contrary, it weakens the bloc.”

Zandberg said the two parties had a: “Historical opportunity to build a large left-wing party against the Likud-Kahanist government. Unfortunately, Gabbay claimed he didn’t see the big chance and that there’s a procedural difficulty within the Labour Party”.

Ahmad Tibi and Ayman Odeh announced yesterday that they agreed to merge for the upcoming elections. According to the deal between Tibi’s Arab Movement for Change and Odeh’s Hadash party, Odeh will stand at the head of the new list while Tibi will take second slot. Both Tibi and Odeh ran under the Joint List in the 2015 elections. Hadash will also receive the third, fifth, sixth and eight slots on the list and Ta’al will also take the fourth, seventh and ninth slots. The two remaining Arab parties, Raam and Balad, will continue to run in the Joint List.

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said his party will run on its own in the upcoming elections. “We at Kulanu plan on continuing and running by ourselves with no connections, no back-door deals, no work arrangements,” he said.

Orly Levy Abekasis said her Gesher party would be “the surprise of these elections because there is a need for a party that knows about and cares about the challenges facing people”. According to latest polling, Gesher would not get enough votes to win any seats in the Knesset.