File:Pre-State Zionist Workers' Parties chart.png|chart of zionist workers parties|360px|right rect 167 83 445 250
Hapoel Hatzair rect 450 88 717 265
Non Partisans rect 721 86 995 243
Poalei Zion rect 152 316 373 502
HaPoel HaMizrachi rect 552 328 884 512
Ahdut HaAvoda rect 891 301 1111 534
Poalei Zion Left rect 283 519 668 928
Mapai rect 5 665 169 1432
HaOved HaTzioni rect 697 747 918 953
Ahdut HaAvoda Movement rect 755 977 959 1234
Ahdut HaAvoda Poalei ZIon rect 775 1265 1136 1444
Mapam rect 966 1023 1232 1217
HaShomer Hatzair Workers' Party rect 1044 572 1228 766
HaShomer HaTzair rect 942 769 1177 919
Socialist League of Palestine rect 387 1275 734 1447
Mapai rect 365 1260 174 1447
HaPoel HaMizrachi rect 36 6 1225 81
Labor Zionism desc bottom-left
Ahdut HaAvoda The original Ahdut HaAvoda party was founded in
Palestine in March 1919, while under British military administration, after a split in the
Poale Zion party, which had established a branch in
Ottoman Syria in 1906. Ahdut HaAvoda was led by David Ben-Gurion, who had been a member of the pre-war group. The root of the division was a conflict between membership of the
Communist International and participation in the
Zionist Organization (ZO). The membership of the more radical anti-ZO faction tended to come from among the newer
Yiddish-speaking immigrants. The speaking of Yiddish became another area of disagreement with Ahdut HaAvoda having a
Hebrew-only policy. The following year, 1920, at a conference in June, the Ahdut HaAvoda decided to establish a military organisation, the
Haganah, to replace the existing
Hashomer militias. The same year, Ahdut HaAvoda and the
non-Marxist Hapoel Hatzair cooperated to set up the "General Organization of Hebrew Workers"—the
Histadrut. In November delegates were elected by 4,500 members of the various labor groups and the first congress was held in Haifa, December 1920. Ahdut HaAvoda did not have an overall majority, but with the help of Hapoel Hatzair, they dominated proceedings. Their objective was the building of a separate Jewish workers economy in
Greater Israel. Ben-Gurion was living in
New York at the time, but returned in 1921 to be elected the first Secretary of the Histradrut. The Haganah was placed under Histadrut jurisdiction. At the third Ahdut HaAvoda congress in 1924 at
Ein Harod, Ben-Gurion defeated proposals put forward by
Shlomo Kaplansky that a parliament be set up in Mandate Palestine. The issue had arisen due to the
British Colonial Office having presented plans for the setting up of a Legislative Council. Other important members of the first Ahdut HaAvoda were
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, and
Berl Katznelson. Cooperation between Ahdut HaAvoda and Hapoel Hatzair led them to merge in 1930 to form the "Party of the Workers of the Land of Israel"—
Mapai, which was to become the dominant force in Zionist politics until the 1960s.
Ahdut HaAvoda Movement On 20 May 1944 a group known as
Faction B (, ''Sia'a Bet
) split from Mapai adopting the Ahdut HaAvoda name from fourteen years earlier (, HaTnu'a LeAhdut HaAvoda''). This group was pro-Soviet, and rejected any territorial compromise. Many of its members came from
HaKibbutz HaMeuhad, the Mapai kibbutz organization. They held a majority of the senior posts in the Haganah and in particular in the
Palmach. Key leaders were
Yisrael Galili and
Yigal Allon. Others with close ties were
David Elazar,
Yitzhak Hofi,
Avraham Adan and
Yitzhak Rabin.
Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement In 1946 the Ahdut HaAvoda Movement merged with
Poale Zion Left to form the Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement (, ''HaTnu'a LeAhdut HaAvoda Poale Zion''). Two years later the party merged with the
Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party to form
Mapam. Most senior Haganah commanders were Mapam members, including the head of the National Command Israel Galili who was one of Mapam's leaders. The Palmach was also dominated by Mapam with its commanding officer, Yigal Allon, and five brigade commanders being members. With the creation of Israel's national army this led to conflict with Ben Gurion. In 1953, after a series of confrontations, two of the four Area Command commanders and six of the twelve brigade commanders resigned. Those members of Mapam who remained, Yitzhak Rabin,
Haim Bar-Lev and
David Elazar, had to endure several years in staff or training post before resuming their careers. The Ahdut HaAvoda members of Mapam were much more hawkish than the Hashomer Hatzair factions, refusing the idea of a
binational state, and with some members supporting the
Greater Israel idea.
Ahdut HaAvoda – Poale Zion On 20 January 1953, following the
Slánský trial that destabilised Mapam's relations with the Soviet Union, two Ahdut HaAvoda MKs,
Hannah Lamdan and
David Livschitz, formed the
Faction independent of Ahdut HaAvoda. On 13 January 1954, the two joined Mapai. On 23 August 1954
Moshe Aram,
Yisrael Bar-Yehuda,
Yitzhak Ben-Aharon and
Aharon Zisling broke away from Mapam to re-establish Ahdut HaAvoda – Poale Zion. However, they were not recognised by the
speaker of the Knesset as an independent party. The new party also launched a newspaper,
LaMerhav, which became a daily publication in December that year, and was published until merging into
Davar in May 1971. The
1955 elections were fought as
Ahdut HaAvoda and the party won 10 seats, making them the fifth largest in the
Knesset. They formed part of both of Ben-Gurion's governing coalitions during the third
Knesset. Party member
Nahum Nir was appointed
Knesset speaker (the only time a speaker has not been a member of the largest party), Bar-Yehuda was made Minister of Internal Affairs, and
Moshe Carmel became
Minister of Transportation. However, the party were ultimately responsible for bringing down the government in 1959 when they and fellow coalition partners Mapam voted against the government on the issue of selling arms to
West Germany but refused to leave the coalition. In the
1959 elections the party was reduced to seven seats. They again joined the coalition government until its collapse in 1961, with Ben-Aharon becoming Minister of Transportation. The
1961 elections saw them gain one seat, and become part of all three coalition governments of the fifth Knesset with Yigal Allon becoming Minister of Labour and Ben-Aharon, Bar-Yehuda and Carmel all acting as Minister of Transportation during the session. For the
1965 elections, the party allied with Mapai to form the
Labor Alignment, which won 45 seats. On 23 January 1968, the party merged with
Mapai and
Rafi to form the
Israeli Labor Party and ceased to exist as an individual entity. == Leaders ==