General Zionist Party

(Hatzionim Haklaliyim)

   In June 1946, the General Zionists A and B, previously separate political parties, joined to form the General Zionist Party. The General Zionists, Group A, in the main represented middle-class interests as well as members of the liberal professions. Group B was more outspokenly right wing. The social outlook of the party was largely determined by the fact that it relied for support mainly upon the industrialists, merchants, citrus growers, and landlords and the various professional associations formed by them. When the General Zionist Party was created, its constituent elements survived within it as organized groupings, and real cohesion was never achieved. After Israeli independence, the rift between the two groups became greater. The crisis culminated in August 1948 with a split of the party, when the former General Zionists A broke away to take part in the formation of the new Progressive Party. The party represented a large section of the secular nonsocialist element among the Jewish population of Israel and sought to portray itself as a center party in the early 1950s. It was represented in the Knesset from 1949 to 1961.