Tzomet Party

Tzomet (two-way) is one of the extremist sectarianism party that was founded in 1983 by Rafael Eitan, former Chief of the Israeli army, after retiring. A number of retired militants and Eitan's former colleagues in the army and a number of residents of Kibbutz and Mushaf (Supporters of "integrated land of Israel") and at top of them kibbutz Ein Ferd Group, formed primary members of Tzomet Party. Shortly before the elections in 1984 the Tzomet party joined Hathya Party. Hathya, as we said earlier, was one of the religious movements of Ghush Eimunim and it formed several other groups with different tendencies and political parties. These groups, despite differences in social purpose and overall insight into the nature of government, all were defenders of settlement building policy and having a radical political program and they were also committed to "integrated lan of Israel" idea.
But soon after, there were disagreement in many cases between a number of leaders of Hathya party and Eitan. Eitan had a different perspective on affairs. He grew up in a Zionist labor movement, Balmah and the Israeli army, while his competitors are religious elements, right-wing fans and were raising in Mefdal party, Yeshivas (religious schools), and Hirut Party and the Reformist movement. Eitan aroused anger of religious elements by insisting on the students of religious schools doing military services and opposing the interference of religion in some cases of legislation and giving funding from the government to religious institutions. In contrast, Eitan was outraged of how Ghush Eimunim and religious elements acted and he was angry of the shape and nature of political ideas of them. Over time, the conflicts reached their peakand in 1987, Eitan and Ghyula Cohen, former leader of the Hirut party in Hathya, started to act against one another and accused one another of trying to dominate the party. Shortly before the 1988 election, Tzomet Party split and Eitan reorganized his party once again.
In the 1988 elections, Tzomet won two seats in the Knesset and in 1990, with the exit of Labor Party from the coalition cabinet of Yitzhak Shamir, Tzomet entered the Cabinet, and Eitan was in charge of Ministry of Agriculture. In late 1991, Eitan protested against Shamir so he resigned plan of direct election of the prime minister by people, but he came back to the cabinet in May 1992 following approval of the plan in the Knesset.
The results of the 1992 elections were unexpected for political circles and Tzomet Party. In this election, Tzomet achieved a great victory and eight candidates of the party could enter the thirteenth Knesset, while in the twelfth Knesset, Tzomet only had 2 representatives.
Several factors contributed in achieving this victory. One of the most important factors was that the voters knew Tzomet Party as uncontaminated to political guile and well-known party, while they considered other parties as artful and with a bad history. Confrontation of leaders of the parties over leadership and ownership of important posts before the elections and transactions and extortion that took place after the collapse of the Cabinet of national unity in 1990, made such a concept in the minds of voters. No doubt that reason why of the positive impression the people for Tzomet all went back to Eitan as other leaders of the party were relatively young, unknown and most of them were new to the political campaign. In early 1994, the positive impression was grossly flawed. At the time, there was an intense fighting between Eitan and three members of the party in the Knesset called Ghunyn Syfef, Aleix Gould Farb & Steer Selmoftis, and Eitan was accused of tyranny and neglecting illegal handling of the party's assets. The conflict led to split of the three members and it led to formation of a new party called "Yeud". New-formed party first joined cabinet of Yitzhak Rabin and then Shimon Peres' cabinet, which was formed in late 1995following Rabin's assassination.
Tzomet intellectually has extremist trends in terms of political and security issues and in the field of economic and social issues it has so-called left-wing tendency and it is considered as the greatest enemies of the Palestinians, including Palestinians in 1948 with Israeli citizenship. The idea of "integrated land of Israel" is center and axis of thoughts and activities of the party. Main principles and policies of the Tzomet in the last parliamentary elections (1992) were as follows: insistence on the unity of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; opposing any withdrawal from the occupied territories of Palestine and Syria; expansion of settlement building activity in all the land; more decisive violent and widespread dealing and suppression of uprising of the Palestinian people (Intifada); refusing to recognize or negotiate with the PLO; rejecting the formation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank of Jordan River; opposing to granting autonomy with broad powers to the Palestinians; continue of Israel's domination on the occupied territories and its complete dominance over external and internal security affairs; and also complete surround over natural resources and infrastructures, lands, water and electricity and the main roads and limiting autonomy of Palestinians to city hall affairs; immediate expansion of Israeli sovereignty on the West Bank and Gaza Strip and residents of the West Bank remaining as Jordanian citizens that enjoy their political rights in Jordan; solving the problem of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and the Gaza strip through the transferring and settling them in the Arab states; making retaining Israeli citizenship of Palestinians in 1948 conditional and giving them equal social and political rights if they prove their full allegiance to the State of Israel and serve The government for 3 years (equal to the length of military service of the Jews) and deprivation of citizenship and expelling those who have prejudice Israel's security.
In the field of economic and society and relations between religion and state, Tzomet emphasizes on improving the living conditions of the poor and disadvantaged in society, equality in education, privatization of health services and social services to the state, the separation of religion from politics, dealing with the religious crackdowns and religious school students going to the military services.
Electoral base of Tzomet was often made by Ashkenazis. Voters are varied in favor of the party. Some people are attracted by the reputation, openness and honesty and stability of Tzomet's political positions and some other are attracted to certain aspects of its political program. Tzomet has strong support of young people, the militants, the inhabitants of the northern towns and supporters of the idea of "integrated land of Israel" living in Kibbutzs and Mushafs affiliated to the Zionist labor movement.
The number of seats of the party in the Knesset in different periods: the twelfth Knesset (1988) 2 seats; the Thirteenth Knesset (1992) 8 seats (and 5 seats after the split)

Religiosity Camp
Religiosities are divided into two main parts in Israel: the Zionist religiosities, who are called in Hebrew and extremists Religious who in Hebrew are called Harydym (righteous). Both of these sectors are dependent on the Orthodox Judaism. In the Israeli political scene, Mafdal party is the representative of the Zionist religious parties and Agudat in Israel, Dyghl Hturah (they now form Group Yahadut HaTorah) and Shas is representative of religious extremists. Reformist religiosities and conservative ones, who are a small groups, have no organized activity in the political arena.
Religious extremists (Harydym) are divided into two cults: the Hasydieh cult and Letvanieh sect. Hasydieh is a Sufi-oriented movement that was formed in the eighteenth century in Latvian (located in South-East Poland). The followers of the sect offer a new fresh thinking of religion and call the perceptions at the time false and oppose it. The new thinking of this sect says that the purpose of religion is joining God through drowning in the thought of him and trying to understand his characters. The followers of this sect say they do not need to study religious teachings deeply because the mere filing of religious rites makes us unnecessary from that and they also claim that any truthful and upright human being can be as God and realize his secrets. Hasydyh arose anger of rabbis and opponents described thinking of the movement as a kind of covering the eyes. Opponents of the Hasydyh movement are often known as because their formation was from the Latvian.
Over time the intensity of conflict between Hasydyh and its opponents decreased and since early current century (twentieth century) the parties formed Aghudat Israel party and as the supreme political - religious committee of the party and now they have coexistence and political cooperation together. Shortly before the election of 1988 and the beginning of this conflict, Latvians split Aghudat Israel and formed a new party called Dyghl Hturah. But during the 1992 campaign, Dyghl Hturah party and Aghudat Israel party made coalition together, and they created the Group .