The Progressive Party was a liberal party, most of whose founders came from the ranks of the
New Aliyah Party and
HaOved HaTzioni, which had been active prior to independence. It consisted primarily of immigrants from
Central Europe. It was formed by three groups: First, and most numerous, was the mostly Central European, middle class
New Aliyah Party, which generally took a liberal position on social issues. Second was
HaOved HaTzioni, a non-socialist
trade union in the
Histadrut that rejected the idea of
class struggle. Last was "group A" of the
General Zionists, which was made up of artisans, small farmers, and members of the liberal professions, and which unlike "group B" was left-of-center and oriented toward the Histadrut. The Progressive Party applied for affiliation at Liberal International's 1955 Lucerne congress and was accepted. This was on the condition that the Progressives would not object to the General Zionist party's affiliation when it decided to apply, which the Progressives willingly accepted (the General Zionists affiliated several years later).
Yeshayahu Foerder represented the Progressive Party at the following LI congress in Stresa in 1956, and brought a draft resolution on the Israeli–Egyptian conflict. After discussion, the LI accepted the resolution without change, marking the first time the LI had voted, at the specific request of a member group, a resolution involving that group's national interest. The resolution was moderate and had been discussed with the Liberal International Executive. It called on the United Nations for greater efforts to maintain strict observance of the Middle East armistice terms and to negotiate a comprehensive settlement securing the territorial integrity of all the states involved. It was the motion of no confidence brought by the new Liberal Party and
Herut that brought down the government. The
1961 elections saw the Liberal Party become the third largest in the Knesset, though they did not join the
coalition. Later in the session, the majority of the Liberal Party MKs merged with
Herut to form
Gahal (which later became
Likud in 1973). However, the MKs that agreed with the merger were largely previous members of the General Zionists. Most former Progressive Party MKs objected to the alliance with Herut and set up the
Independent Liberals instead. ==Leaders==