Shinui
Shinui was a Zionist, secular, and anti-clerical free market liberal party and political movement in Israel. The party twice became the third-largest in the Knesset, but both occasions were followed by a split and collapse; in 1977, the party won 15 seats as part of the Democratic Movement for Change, but the alliance split in 1978, and Shinui was reduced to two seats at the next elections. In 2003, the party won 15 seats alone, but lost them all three years later after most of its MKs left to form new parties. The party was a member of Liberal International until 2009.
Though it had been the standard-bearer of economic liberalism and secularism in Israel for 30 years, the formation of Kadima robbed Shinui of its natural constituency, and in January 2006 the party split into small factions, none of which managed to overcome the 2% threshold needed to enter the Knesset.
History
1970s
As Israel made its transition from a developing nation into an economically prosperous one, a highly educated middle class emerged, tracing its historical political orientation to Labor Zionism. Many of these Israelis banded together to form Shinui.Shinui was established by business people and academics in 1974, following the 1973 Arab–Israeli Yom Kippur War, which shook the Israeli public. Prior to the 1977 elections, it formed an alliance with several other small liberal parties. Initially, the party was called Democrats–Shinui, but was soon changed to the Democratic Movement for Change, and, as with many parties in Israel, became popularly known by its acronym, Dash. The new party caught the public's imagination, with over 37,000 people signing up as members within a few weeks of its foundation. It also pioneered the use of primaries to choose its electoral list, something that was intended to show its democratic credentials and prevent cronyism. Previously, in Israel, party lists had been decided upon by the parties' committees, but since the late 1970s, many parties in Israel have followed Dash's lead and adopted the primaries system.
The new party won 15 seats, the best performance by the third party since the 1961 elections. This made it the third-largest party after Menachem Begin's Likud and the Alignment, which had shrunk from 51 to 32 seats. However, Begin was still able to form a narrow 61-seat right-wing coalition with Shlomtzion, the National Religious Party, and Agudat Israel.
Dash were invited into the coalition in November 1977, five months after the Knesset term had started. The party picked up several ministerial portfolios: Meir Amit was made Minister of Transportation and Minister of Communications, Shmuel Tamir became Minister of Justice, and Yigael Yadin was named as Deputy Prime Minister. However, the fact that Dash did not control the balance of power led to internal disagreements over its role. The alliance began to disintegrate, finally splitting in three on 14 September 1978, with seven MKs breaking away to from the Movement for Change and Initiative, which was later renamed Shinui, another seven founding the Democratic Movement, and Assaf Yaguri creating Ya'ad. Shinui and Ya'ad left the coalition, whilst the Democratic Movement, which included Tamir and Yadin, remained in the government. Two Shinui MKs defected to the Alignment, leaving the party with five seats in 1981.
1980s
In the 1981 elections, the party was reduced to two seats. In 1984, they won three seats, and were invited to join the national unity government, but pulled out of the coalition on 26 May 1987. Although the party gained an MK from the Alignment, it lost Mordechai Virshubski to Ratz. The party was renamed Shinui – The Center Party during certain periods.By 1985, Liberal International was considering admitting Shinui as a member in place of the Liberal Party. While the Liberal Party had formed an alliance with Herut in the Likud bloc, Shinui was dovish and allied with the Labor Alignment. Shinui joined Liberal International as a member in 1986.
1990s
In the 1988 elections, Shinui presented a joint list with the New Liberal Party, and was reduced to two seats. Although the party gained an MK from the Alignment, they lost another to Ratz. However, in 1992, it joined with Ratz and Mapam to form the leftist alliance, Meretz. Meretz won 12 seats in the 1992 elections, and was Yitzhak Rabin's major coalition partners in his Labor-led government.In 1996, the three parties decided to officially merge to form a united Meretz party. Although Shinui leader Amnon Rubinstein supported the merger, most party members sought to distance themselves from the leftist social-democratic elements in Meretz. Two MKs broke away to re-establish Shinui as an independent party in 1997 under the leadership of Avraham Poraz. In the run-up to the 1999 elections, the party's first independent electoral contest in 11 years, Poraz tried to brand the party as a representative of the middle class, and focused on reducing government intervention in the economy and tax burdens. However, this approach did not yield the party any new voters, and opinion polls predicted that Shinui would not make it past the threshold.
Meanwhile, Avraham Poraz's views and political activities, combined with his distance from Meretz's leftist stances and lack of public association between the two, won the support of TV celebrity Tommy Lapid, who was known for his fierce rhetoric against religious coercion. As a result of last-minute negotiations between the two, the party changed its name to Shinui – the Secular Movement, and reserved the most electable positions on the Shinui list to Lapid and his associates at the expense of established Shinui members. For example, Lapid himself, who was not a party member at the time, was given the first place on the list, traditionally reserved to the party leader, while Poraz was relegated to second place.
In the elections, Shinui won 6 seats, and announced its refusal to join any coalition that includes the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism. As a result of this relative success in the 1999 elections, Lapid and his representatives formally joined the Shinui party, with the party leadership passing from Poraz to Lapid.
2000s
In the 2003 elections, the party won 15 seats, making it the third-largest in the Knesset. Ariel Sharon invited the party to form a secular coalition, with Shinui taking several key ministerial positions, including the Internal Affairs ministry, a key position in the secular-religious struggle. The party used its bargaining power to close down the Religious Affairs ministry.Shinui presented itself as centrist on security issues.
Paritzky affair
In July 2004, a tape recording of Shinui MK and Minister of Infrastructure Yosef Paritzki was exposed by Ayala Hasson. In the tape, Paritzki was heard to ask a private investigator to investigate the actions of his Shinui colleague Avraham Poraz. The private investigator was probably paid by the workers' union of Israel's Power Company, which wanted to prevent a law bill by Poraz denying the IPC workers many privileges they currently hold.In response, Shinui publicly denounced and condemned Paritzki, and asked Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to fire Paritzki from the cabinet, and called on Paritzki to resign from the Knesset and leave Shinui. Paritzki refused, and blamed Shinui and other factors in a plot against him; he eventually formed his own party, Tzalash. A criminal investigation was ended without any indictment or any further legal proceedings.
Religious parties join the coalition
In August 2004, Sharon initiated coalition negotiations with several other parties after he lost the government majority required to support his disengagement plan. Although he preferred to form a Likud–Labor–Shinui "secular unity" government, this was thwarted by Likud MKs. Sharon then started negotiations with Shas and United Torah Judaism. Although Shinui had vowed not to sit in a coalition with either party, after significant pressure from Sharon, and to avoid being blamed for thwarting the implementation of the disengagement plan, Lapid retracted his vow, and agreed to let UTJ join the coalition if they would agree to the government's principles.Shinui out of the cabinet
On 1 December 2004, Shinui voted against Sharon's 2005 budget, which included subsidies to UTJ projects. In response, Sharon fired the Shinui ministers from the cabinet. On 10 January 2005, Labor joined the coalition, replacing Shinui. However, the party continued to support the disengagement and Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's financial reforms. Following its departure from the government, the party formed a Shadow cabinet and was renamed Shinui – Party for the Secular and the Middle Class.Poraz affair and party split
In June 2005, Poraz was confronted by party activists who accused him and Lapid of dictatorial control of the party, and was recorded by them offering vacation flights out of the country and other financial favours. The tape reached Maariv, which at the time was running its "Where is the Shame" anti-corruption campaign led by its editor Amnon Dankner and top columnist Dan Margalit. However, the affair generated little publicity, as the party was outside the government. Nevertheless, the issues were brought to a head in September 2005 when Rubinstein criticized Lapid for stifling criticism and not engaging efforts to expand the party's membership.On 12 January 2006, the party held internal primary elections in preparation for the elections that year. In a surprise result, Ron Levintal beat Poraz in the contest for second place on the party's list behind Lapid. This resulted in the party splitting, with five MKs leaving the party to form a new party they claimed would represent the "real Shinui". On 25 January, Lapid resigned as party chairman, and left the party, declaring it no longer worthy of support. By then, a total of eleven MKs had left Shinui and formed a new party, the Secular Faction, led by Poraz and supported by Lapid. After Yigal Yasinov also left the party, Shinui was left with only two MKs, Ehud Rassabi and Ilan Leibovitch.
Before the elections, Levintal made several conciliatory gestures toward Hetz, attempting negotiations with them, the anti-corruption Tafnit party led by Uzi Dayan, and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak over the prospect of forming a united front, but to no avail. In the election, Shinui won just 4,675 votes, 0.16% of the total, well below the 2% electoral threshold. Hetz won only 10,113 votes, meaning that both parties lost their Knesset representation.