Labor Party members at prayer? (Archive Photo)
צילום: גיל יוחנן
Arabs largest new group in Labor
Labor signs up almost 120,000 party members: Arabs make up largest sector with 23,000 members; kibbutzniks lag with only 12,000
After much wrangling, the numbers are in: The Labor Party signed up a total of 120,000 new members during its last drive. Of those, 23,000 were Israeli Arab citizens - nearly double the number of kibbutz members who joined the party.
This makes Arabs the largest party district - even if in the last Knesset election only 13,000 voted for Labor.
Meanwhile, there are an additional 7,000 membership forms that are being reviewed, some of them for suspicion of fraud. After comparing party rolls, it was discovered that 2,234 Labor Party members were also signed up for the Likud and another 750 belonged to Meretz.
Those registered for two different parties will be sent a letter asking them to choose between the two.
On Wednesday, some party officials complained of thousands of forms that went missing.
“The headquarters is null and void. Irregular things were done and we have to review the whole process from the beginning. Forms and even whole communities went missing,” Environment Minister and Ehud Barak campaign chief Shalom Simhon said.
However, some officials in Labor see this a stalling tactic to delay the primaries and get the maximum number of sympathetic members on the party lists.
