They did not cheat like all Arab parties in Israel where one guy comes and votes for 17 relatives. They should have done the same thing in Ramat Aviv. Nobody was watching when I was voting for Meretz.

because they are radical Leftists who are out-of-touch with the Israeli public?

These elections the Arabs are more militant than ever and the voting % for Zionist parties (Meretz is considered Zionist to them) is probably the lowest in 60 years, as you can see there are 10 mandates for Arab parties, these extra 2 mandates come at the expense of Meretz and thus Meretz went down from 6 to 4 mandates.

Who was responsible for the racist ads against the religious...perhaps, this is why you lost so many seats. What about ahavat Yisrael?

It seems to me they lost because: 1. They're kind of irrelevent in the bigger picture. Labour has most of the same positions. 2. As things become more polarized and ugly, people don't want to vote for nice guys whose hearts are in the right place. 3. People who wanted to stick it to the extreme Right and the settlers would vote Kadima, since in practice they're the only ones who have/will actually be able move settlers out.

Look, this fellow is apalling, but if anyone is "pure" Meretz, it's Beilin. Meretz lost seats because its ideology has essentially been adopted by other parties. Why vote Meretz when you can get essentially the same thing with Labor or Kadima?

Meretz crashed because a lot of voters preferred Labor. Amir Peretz at least has an image of someone who can move things, while Beilin is an intellectual and totally cut off from the "people" - Meretz is a club for the elitists.

He will be happier among the adversaries.

It appears that Meretz secured five, not four, MKs, as a result of the final vote tally of those Israelis who were not able to vote at the ballot box / polling sites. See details at www.meretzusa.org