Ale Yarok (), is a liberal

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

best known for its ideology of legalizing

cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae that is widely accepted as being indigenous to and originating from the continent of Asia. However, the number of species is disputed, with as many as three species be ...

. To date, it has had no representation in the

Knesset The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel. The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...

. Ale Yarok has not yet met the electoral threshold for inclusion in any of the elections that they have contested.

History

Established in 1999 by Boaz Wachtel, Shlomi Sandak, and Rafik Kimchi, the party gained 1% of the vote in the elections that year, and 1.2% in the 2003 elections, but both times failed to pass the 1.5% threshold for representation in the Knesset. After these elections and despite the strong results in the 2003 elections, the chairman of Ale Yarok, Boaz Wachtel announced that he was giving up the leadership of the party, but remained in the position due to party members requests. Before the 2006 elections the party announced that it intended to run for a third time, despite the threshold for representation having been raised to 2%. The party competed for votes with the supporters of the Democratic Choice (which later stepped down from running in the election) and with Meretz-Yachad, which had also promised to act for the decriminalization of soft drugs; another competitor was the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as environmentalism and social justice. Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...

with a strong ecological platform. The party gained 1.3% of the vote, and came second among those parties failing to make the threshold. After the election, Wachtel passed the chairmanship to Ohad Shem-Tov. Before the 2009 elections, Shem-Tov was expelled from the party by Shlomi Sandak who was the temporary chairman of the Green Leaf Party. Internal disputes led the party to split with Shem-Tov forming the Ale Yarok Alumni group. The Alumni party later allied with the Holocaust Survivors party to contest the 2009 Knesset elections. In this elections Ale Yarok was led by Israeli

comedian A comedian (feminine comedienne) or comic is a person who seeks to entertainment, entertain an audience by making them laughter, laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolishly (as in slapstick), or employing prop c ...

Gil Kopatch. For the 2013 elections, the party presented a broad liberal platform and ran with some members of the "New Liberal Movement" (an Israeli libertarian nonpartisan organization, also known as the Israeli Freedom Movement), under the name "Ale Yarok-The Liberal list". Oren Lebovitch has been the chairman of the party since December 2014. Lebovitch, the editor-in-chief of the Israeli Cannabis Magazine, lead the party to its highest number of voters on the March 2015 election.

Ideology

The party's current platform is based on the

legalization Legalization is the process of removing a law, legal prohibition against something which is currently not legal. Legalization is a process often applied to what are regarded, by those working towards legalization, as victimless crimes, of which ...

of the cannabis plant,

marijuana Cannabis (), commonly known as marijuana (), weed, pot, and ganja, List of slang names for cannabis, among other names, is a non-chemically uniform psychoactive drug from the ''Cannabis'' plant. Native to Central or South Asia, cannabis has ...

and

hashish Hashish (; ), usually abbreviated as hash, is a Compression (physics), compressed form of resin (trichomes) derived from the cannabis flowers. European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Lisbon, As a Psychoactive drug, psychoactive ...

, expansion of

human rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...

free market In economics, a free market is an economic market (economics), system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of ...

and

institutionalization In sociology, institutionalisation (or institutionalization) is the process of embedding some conception (for example a belief, norm, social role, particular value or mode of behavior) within an organization, social system, or society as a w ...

prostitution Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, no ...

and

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of Value (economics), value ("the stakes") on a Event (probability theory), random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy (ga ...

. In official publications the movement claims that "the partition between

right-wing Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...

and

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

is anachronistic"; it believes that any proposed solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be put on referendum in order to be legitimate. It takes a left-wing stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Election results

Notes

References

{{Israeli political parties 1999 establishments in Israel Cannabis political parties Cannabis political parties of Israel Green liberalism Green political parties in Israel Liberal parties in Israel Political parties established in 1999 Political parties in Israel 1999 in cannabis Words and phrases in Modern Hebrew

History

Ideology

Election results

See also

Notes

References