AHC: Keep Israel Left-wing

At the time of its founding, Israel was led by the socialist Mapai party, which held power (either on its own or in a coalition) until 1977, when a right-wing coalition led by Likud took power. Since then, the country has taken a more right-wing turn. How could this be avoided, or reversed, with a resurgent Labor Zionist movement? What effect would this have?
 
Checking the Wikipedia page for the 1977 election, the left-wing parties seemed screwed. Scandal, political infighting, bad economy, questions about their military policy... I can't see them winning. I think the POD will need to be a right-wing government forming earlier in the 1970s and getting hit by the bad economy and various other problems.
 
On the other hand, most of Alignment's losses in 1977 were reversed in 1981; possibly they do a little better that year and/or increase their seats in 84?
 
. . . I think the POD will need to be a right-wing government forming earlier in the 1970s and getting hit by the bad economy and various other problems.
similar to the theme that whoever wins the '76 U.S. presidential election likely to face the same headwinds as Carter
 
may be a pipe dream, but possibility of decent and straightforward settlement shortly after '67 war before things get entrenched?

* and a Labor government no guarantee of taking high road on foreign policy nor make extra to treat an occupied people fairly. I think there's abundant historical examples of that.
 
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At the time of its founding, Israel was led by the socialist Mapai party, which held power (either on its own or in a coalition) until 1977, when a right-wing coalition led by Likud took power. Since then, the country has taken a more right-wing turn. How could this be avoided, or reversed, with a resurgent Labor Zionist movement? What effect would this have?

The US gains moral conscience and begins supporting Arab nationalism. ;):D
 
Have the Arab side in the 73 war fail miserably and be beaten down quickly. That keeps Meir's party in power.
 
may be a pipe dream, but possibility of decent and straightforward settlement shortly after '67 war before things get entrenched?

* and a Labor government no guarantee of taking high road on foreign policy nor make extra to treat an occupied people fairly. I think there's abundant historical examples of that.

I know people like to bring this stuff up in any Israel-involving timeline, but I don't see how it would help here. Mapai was riding high for several years after '67. Resentment and negative feelings towards the settlements wouldn't really start setting in for quite a while (80s at the earliest). Now, if Sinai+Gaza or the West Bank (or both) could be traded for a permanent peace treaty...even that probably wouldn't much matter. The reasons that the Israeli Left lost power have almost nothing to do with foreign relations (they're related mostly to economics and simmering social resentment on the part of the Mizrahi Jews against the "Ashkenazi establishment", ignoring the fact that the Right was also dominated by Ashkenazim...)
 
Please try and keep the fact that the left/right spectrum in Israel is mostly based on a single issue litmus test. You can be a European socialist and still be labeled right wing in the Israeli political discourse due to your views on security. It distorts any answer to questions like this.
 
Please try and keep the fact that the left/right spectrum in Israel is mostly based on a single issue litmus test. You can be a European socialist and still be labeled right wing in the Israeli political discourse due to your views on security. It distorts any answer to questions like this.

...Except that this polarity is very, very recent. Both parties were solidly "right" on security issues by today's standards through the late 80s at least. The Israeli left is, historically, primarily characterized by both socialist policy including a command (or at least controlled) economy, a strong social net/welfare, and even a lot of glorification of traditional socialist issues (workers and farmers are the best, down with the evil capitalists and bourgeoisie, etc). Israel even had a relatively major political party that was openly aligned with the Soviet Union.
 
At the time of its founding, Israel was led by the socialist Mapai party, which held power (either on its own or in a coalition) until 1977...
Scandal, political infighting, bad economy, questions about their military policy...
And that's you're problem right there, at least for everything apart from the military policy bit - entrenched political parties that have no real opposition for extended periods of time like ten to fifteen years, never mind over three decades, start to get lazy and become feeling entitled. If you want the country to stay left-wing then I'd say that you need to build up small yet solidly respectable alternative left-wing party that doesn't go into coalition with them at any point. It might possibly threaten to split the vote a little but that's not really a problem, Mapai is still going to implode but it provides an alternative for left-wing voters to transfer their allegiance to.
 
From what I've read and heard, one of the main factors for the rise of Likud was that they were regarded as the legitimate voice for the Mizrahim/Sephardic population. After the Jewish exodus from the Middle Eastern and North African countries, these people lived in shelters and development towns for a long time. Even later, they mostly lived in the run-down parts of Israel's cities. It is said that the socialist, secular elite of Mapai didn't have a very good opinion on the Mizrahim, who were considered to have an Oriental culture and who couldn't speak Hebrew (rumours have it that Ben-Gurion hated them more than the Arabs!). So they turned to Likud as their party, whereas Mapai/Labor remained basically an Ashkenazim party (I always compare this to India: Congress was for a long time the "natural governing" party of a secular, socialist elite, whereas Jana Sangh/BJP was more religious and "nativist").

Fast forward to today: the sephardic population has been growing, while the old Ashkenazim elite is getting old. So to prevent the rise of Likud, Mapai should have somehow made more appeal to the Sephardic population already earlier, possibly by integrating them better.
 
Yigal Amir misses by a couple centimeters. Rabin gets wounded but makes full recovery. The "they killed our prime minister" shock still exists as in OTL, to some extent, but the candidate in the 1996 election is Rabin rather than eternal loser Peres, and at the end Rabin squeaks by and is reelected.

The problem is that Barak is still poised to be Rabin's successor at this stage, and he's not going to be better than in OTL...

(Honestly, Peres lost by so little, and was up in the polls until shortly before the election, that he might have won anyway - it boiled down to last-minute campaigning decisions, like Bibi's "Peres will divide Jerusalem" campaign.)

Trying to postpone the 1977 election results isn't going to change much. Eventually, in a democracy, the ruling party loses. The interesting bit isn't that Labor eventually lost - it's that since 1977, the only period of recognizably center-left government in Israel was 1992-1996. A lot of it has to do with the Russian migration wave rather than the Mizrahis. In the 1990s, the Russians were the bellwether group. They drifted right in the 2000s, due to issues like "Labor and Meretz dropped the ball on talking to them rather than at them" and "Lieberman's popularity grew."
 
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