The Democratic Movement (, ''Tnu'a Demokratit'') was a short-lived

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 ...

formed in the aftermath of the spectacular breakup of

Dash The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

. Founded in 1978, it lasted only until 1981.

Background

The party was formed on 14 September 1978 when Dash split into three new parties just sixteen months after having come third in the 1977 elections. Seven MKs, including Dash leader Yigael Yadin, founded the Democratic Movement, seven created Shinui (Change) and one set up Ya'ad. Unlike Shinui, which pulled out, the new party remained part of

Menachem Begin Menachem Begin ( ''Menaḥem Begin'', ; (Polish documents, 1931–1937); ; 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of both Herut and Likud and the prime minister of Israel. Before the creation of the state of Isra ...

's coalition government, with Yadin as deputy Prime Minister and Shmuel Tamir as Minister of Justice. However, like its predecessor, the Democratic Movement also broke up. In 1980 four MKs left the party; Mordechai Elgrably left on 5 February to sit as an independent MK (he later helped form the Unity Party), on 8 July Shafik Asaad and Shlomo Eliyahu left to form Ahva (which also split before the next elections), whilst Akiva Nof left on 17 September, also to join Ahva. The party was officially dissolved on 10 March 1981, with its remaining members, Tamir, Yadin and Binyamin Halevi, sitting out the remainder of the Knesset session as independents.

List of Knesset members

External links

Party history
Knesset website {{Authority control Defunct political parties in Israel Political parties established in 1978 Political parties disestablished in 1981 Liberal parties in Israel Zionist political parties in Israel