Gahal

Gahal’s name abbreviated the Hebrew Gush Herut-Liberalim, meaning “Herut-Liberal Bloc”; it brought together the Herut movement and the Israel Liberal Party in a common electoral and parliamentary framework.[2] Its constituent parties remained organizationally separate, but agreed to operate as one parliamentary group and present a joint Knesset list under Menachem Begin.[2] The arrangement therefore combined electoral cooperation with continuing party autonomy, rather than replacing the two organizations with a single unified party.[2]

The bloc occupied a central place in the development of a substantial non-socialist alternative to the Labor movement.[5] Herut supplied a nationalist tradition rooted in Revisionist Zionism, while the Liberal component emphasized economic liberalism and private initiative.[6][7] Their cooperation extended beyond Knesset elections to municipal bodies and the Histadrut, while leaving room for differences on foreign relations, religious-party policies, and territorial questions.[8]

Gahal’s history encompassed both opposition and participation in government: it entered the national unity coalition in 1967, remained through the transition from Eshkol to Meir, and held six ministerial positions after the 1969 election.[3][4] Its departure in 1970 reflected a major disagreement over diplomacy and territorial withdrawal, but did not end its role as a common political framework.[4] The bloc subsequently joined other groups to form Likud before the 1973 election.[2]

Herut and the Liberal Party signed their agreement in April 1965, near the end of the Fifth Knesset, when both parties were in opposition.[2][8] The immediate political background included Levi Eshkol’s pursuit of an alignment with the left-wing Ahdut Avoda in 1964 and growing calls for a large non-socialist bloc capable of countering the Labor Alignment.[8] The agreement committed the partners to a joint Knesset ticket and unified parliamentary activity while preserving their separate and independent organizations.[8]

Herut had been founded in June 1948 and was led by Menachem Begin, who established it after Israel’s founding and the disbanding of the Irgun and was elected to the first Knesset.[6][9] Its ideological roots lay in the Irgun and Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionism.[6][7] Herut opposed socialism, supported private enterprise, and maintained a nationalist outlook associated with the integrity of the Land of Israel.[7][9] Before the creation of Gahal, Begin’s party had been the principal opposition party but remained outside governing coalitions.[10]

The Liberal Party had been created in 1961 through the merger of the General Zionist and Progressive parties.[8] Its platform combined support for a welfare state and state-administered social services with demands for more scope for private initiative and less government intervention in economic affairs.[8] It also advocated fairer taxation, individual liberties, and a written constitution.[8] The General Zionist tradition was associated with a moderate middle-class party whose origins extended into the Mandate period.[10]

Cooperation rested most clearly on shared opposition to socialism and support for private initiative, although the parties retained distinct traditions and positions on national questions.[8][7] The Liberal Party’s foreign and territorial outlook was more moderate than Herut’s, while the 1965 agreement left each party organizationally independent.[11][9]

Not all Liberals accepted the agreement with Herut.[2] The Liberal Party Central Committee approved the arrangement, but a minority withdrew and established the Independent Liberal Party.[8] These opponents included members who had previously belonged to the Progressive Party.[2] Before the realignment, Herut and the Liberal Party had each won 17 seats in the 1961 election; seven Liberal members refused to join Begin, leaving the newly constituted Gahal parliamentary faction with 27 members.[12] That initial parliamentary strength was distinct from the 26 seats the joint list subsequently won at the polls.[12]

The creation of the bloc also affected its parties’ press operations.[1] Herut and the Liberals closed their separate newspapers at the end of 1965 and replaced them with a joint daily, ha-Yom, meaning “Today.”[1] Financial difficulty in maintaining two daily newspapers was the principal reason for the change.[1] The shared newspaper accompanied the new political framework without eliminating the constituent parties’ separate organizations.[1][2]

In the November 1965 election to the Sixth Knesset, Gahal won 26 seats on 256,957 votes, representing 21.3 percent of valid votes.[13] The Alignment, led by Levi Eshkol, won 45 seats on 443,379 votes, or 36.7 percent.[13] Gahal therefore entered the new Knesset with a substantial parliamentary delegation but remained well behind the leading list.[13] The Independent Liberals, who had separated following the agreement with Herut, won five seats.[14]

The distribution within Gahal reflected the continuing identity of its two components: Herut held 15 seats and the Liberal Party 11, making up the bloc’s total of 26.[10] Their representatives contested elections through a single list, but the gap between Gahal and the Labor Alignment was too wide for Gahal to form a government.[10] During the Sixth Knesset, Gahal and the Alignment were the two consolidating political blocs, although the Alignment’s composition changed during the parliamentary term.[15]

The agreement’s reach extended beyond the national legislature.[8] It provided for joint blocs in municipal bodies and was later extended to the Histadrut.[8] In the September 1965 Histadrut election, the joint list received more than 15 percent of the vote and became the largest grouping after the governing alignment.[8] Gahal’s cooperation consequently operated in several political institutions rather than solely through the Knesset ballot.[8]

Acting as a single parliamentary group did not require the partners to vote identically on every issue.[8] Liberal members supported stronger relations with West Germany, unlike their Herut counterparts, and opposed some policies advanced by the religious parties.[8] Such exceptions were compatible with the arrangement’s preservation of party independence.[8] The bloc’s common parliamentary activity thus coexisted with explicit freedom of action on certain questions.[8]

In the October 28, 1969 election to the Seventh Knesset, Gahal again won 26 seats, receiving 296,294 votes, or 21.7 percent of valid votes.[16] The Alignment won 56 seats on 632,035 votes, representing 46.2 percent.[16] Although Gahal’s vote total and vote share increased from 1965, its parliamentary representation remained unchanged at 26 seats.[13][16] It remained the second-largest list after the Alignment and again fell short of displacing the Labor-led government.[4]

Gahal entered government during the security crisis of May–June 1967, breaking with the previous exclusion of Herut from governing coalitions.[10][17] Until then, Mapai had maintained a policy of keeping both Herut and the Communist parties outside its coalitions.[10] Bringing Herut into government alongside its Liberal partners marked a significant change in the composition of Israel’s national leadership immediately before the Six-Day War.[10]

Discussions about broadening the government began in late May at the suggestion of the National Religious Party.[18] During escalating tensions with Egypt, Eshkol invited Gahal leaders Menachem Begin and Yosef Sapir, together with Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir, to join the Cabinet as ministers without portfolio.[18] Public and political pressure for a broader government mounted as the regional crisis deepened.[3][17]

On May 29, Gahal, Rafi, and the National Religious Party proposed that Dayan become defense minister.[18] After three days of debate, Eshkol agreed to relinquish the defense portfolio and appoint him.[18] Begin and Sapir entered the enlarged government as ministers without portfolio, while Dayan became defense minister.[17] The resulting coalition was Israel’s first national unity government.[18]

The expansion was not required to give Eshkol a parliamentary majority: his existing coalition already held 75 of the Knesset’s 120 seats.[3] Bringing Gahal and other opposition figures into the Cabinet instead created a broader wartime government during an external security crisis.[3]

The enlarged Cabinet decided on a preemptive strike against Egypt, and Eshkol informed the Knesset of the government’s changed composition only after the attack had begun.[3] Begin regarded the establishment of the national unity government as an event of great national importance.[17] Gahal’s ministers remained in office until Eshkol’s death in February 1969 and continued serving under Golda Meir until the election later that year.[17]

After the 1969 election, Meir formed another broad coalition that included Gahal, the National Religious Party, the Independent Liberals, and two Arab lists affiliated with the Alignment.[4] Following difficult negotiations, she presented the government to the Knesset on December 15, 1969, with the support of 102 members.[4] The coalition spanned left, right, and center, as well as secular, religious, traditional, Jewish, and Arab constituencies; Ben-Gurion’s State List remained in opposition.[4]

Gahal received six ministerial positions in the new government.[4] Begin served without portfolio; Elimelech Rimalt became minister of postal services; Sapir, minister of commerce and industry; Haim Landau, minister of development; Ezer Weizman, minister of transportation; and Aryeh Dulzin, minister without portfolio.[4] Weizman and Dulzin were not Knesset members.[4] These appointments gave Gahal both departmental responsibilities and representation through ministers without portfolio, extending its involvement beyond the two appointments it had received in 1967.[2][4]

Gahal’s initial electoral platform was largely identical to the Liberal Party’s 1961 platform, giving the Liberal component an important role in the alliance’s common program.[8] Economic liberalism was a defining contribution of that party within the bloc.[2] Shared support for the private sector and private initiative, together with minimal state involvement in the economy, provided a substantial basis for cooperation between Liberals and Herut.[7]

The partners’ opposition to socialism did not amount to rejection of every state social responsibility.[8][10] The Liberal platform supported a welfare state and public administration of social services, while Herut’s socioeconomic program combined an essentially liberal orientation with advocacy of state intervention in industrial relations.[8][10] During the Sixth Knesset, Gahal demanded implementation of a national health insurance system, a demand also advanced by Uri Avneri’s Olam Hazeh-Koah Hadash.[15] These positions placed public services and social provision alongside the bloc’s support for private economic initiative.[8][15]

A Ynet historical account contrasted the Liberal Party’s General Zionist middle-class base with Herut’s support among new immigrants from Middle Eastern countries and lower-income wage earners.[11] This characterization presented Gahal as an alliance of parties with different social constituencies as well as distinct political traditions.[11]

Territorial policy exposed differences that the organizational agreement did not erase.[9] Herut continued to affirm the integrity of the Land of Israel, but the Liberal Party did not include that principle in the 1965 agreement.[9] Liberal members initially held a more moderate territorial position, closer to Mapai’s, while Herut’s nationalist outlook emphasized the wholeness of the homeland.[7][11] A contemporary 1973 description also recorded Herut’s claim to both banks of the Jordan.[10]

After the Six-Day War, Israeli national sovereignty over Western Palestine became a principal issue in Gahal’s platform, and moderate Liberals also adopted that position.[7] The change narrowed one of the earlier territorial differences between the partners and later shaped Gahal’s opposition to diplomatic initiatives involving territorial withdrawal.[2][19]

The parliamentary setting for these policies was dominated by the Six-Day War and its aftermath.[15] The Sixth Knesset debated Security Council Resolution 242 and the territories occupied by the IDF, alongside domestic matters such as national health insurance.[15] Gahal consequently pursued economic and social proposals while participating in central arguments over the implications of Israel’s military victory and the terms of future diplomacy.[15][7]

Gahal left the national unity government in August 1970 because of its opposition to the American political initiative advanced by the Nixon administration and Secretary of State William Rogers.[2][4] The initiative concerned negotiations with Israel’s neighbors, especially Egypt, on the basis of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242.[4] Its implications for territorial withdrawal conflicted with Gahal’s postwar territorial priorities.[2][19]

The Cabinet initially decided against accepting the American initiative because it appeared to embrace the Rogers Plan.[19] After President Richard Nixon sent a letter urging acceptance, Meir assembled a majority in favor of the proposal.[19] The government accepted a modified version of the American proposal following American pressure, while Gahal’s ministers opposed it.[4] The proposal involved a diplomatic framework concerning Egypt and Jordan and incorporated much of Resolution 242, including a call for withdrawal from territories captured in the Six-Day War.[4]

Following the Cabinet deliberations, Gahal’s six ministers resigned from the government.[19] Their departure ended the bloc’s continuous participation in national unity coalitions since 1967.[10] The objection concerned the government’s willingness to accept the Rogers initiative and the principle of territories for peace, not a withdrawal forced by an election defeat.[2] Ezer Weizman’s departure from the transportation ministry formed part of Gahal’s collective withdrawal.[4]

Gahal’s exit reduced the breadth of the coalition but did not bring down Meir’s government.[4] The government survived and remained in office until March 1974.[4] Gahal returned to opposition after more than three years of participation in national executive government, retaining its joint political framework until the formation of Likud.[2][10] Its period in office had also helped establish its standing as a legitimate opposition after it left the governing majority.[10]

In 1973, before the election to the Eighth Knesset, Herut and the Liberal Party joined other parties and groups to create the broader Likud list.[2] The additional partners included the State List, the Free Centre, and the Movement for Greater Israel.[11] Gahal was absorbed into the new framework, providing the political foundation from which Likud emerged.[2][11]

The Free Centre had itself split from Gahal in 1967 and won two seats in the 1969 election, while the Movement for Greater Israel had previously operated outside parliament.[12] Their inclusion, together with remnants of the State List, extended the alliance beyond Gahal’s original Herut–Liberal partnership.[12] The expanded alliance continued Gahal’s effort to assemble a broader electoral alternative to the Labor movement.[11]

In the December 31, 1973 election, Likud won 39 seats.[14][11] The Alignment won 51, leaving the new alliance short of power despite its larger delegation.[11] Gahal’s own attempts to displace Mapai in the 1965 and 1969 elections had failed, but the expanded framework continued the effort to build a broader alternative.[11] Likud eventually came to power with Begin as prime minister in June 1977, as an alliance encompassing Herut and other right-wing, right-leaning, and centrist parties and factions.[6]

Gahal’s institutional importance lay partly in demonstrating that two major parties could preserve their autonomy while conducting joint parliamentary activity.[5] A Lookstein Center reference credits its domestic proposals with contributing to the liberalization of Israeli society and argues that the emergence of a non-socialist opposition list with more than 20 seats significantly changed the atmosphere of Israeli parliamentary politics.[5]

The transition from an excluded Herut opposition to membership in national unity governments, and then to the broader Likud alliance, formed a central part of Gahal’s significance.[2][10] Its history combined organizational cooperation, ministerial responsibility, and continued ideological independence, leaving the 1965 partnership as an important stage in the development of Israel’s governing Right.[2][6]

The principal substantive dispute surrounding Gahal’s government service concerned territorial compromise and the American diplomatic initiative of 1970.[2] Herut’s commitment to the integrity of the Land of Israel conflicted with the government’s willingness to accept a framework involving territorial withdrawal, producing a Cabinet split and the resignation of Gahal’s ministers.[9][19] The rupture illustrated the limits of national unity when the participating parties differed over the terms of diplomacy after the Six-Day War.[2]

Gahal also figured in arguments about the politicization of the army.[20] In that context, former defense minister Haim Bar-Lev claimed that generals who had served alongside him and later entered politics “went to the right wing party Gahal,” mentioning Ezer Weizmann and Shlomo Lahat.[20] This was a claim made within a political argument, rather than an independently established generalization about the political destinations of former generals.[20]