Editing Gahal (section)

==History==
Gahal was formed by an alliance of [[Herut]] and the [[Liberal Party (Israel)|Liberal Party]] towards the end of the [[1961 Israeli legislative election|fifth Knesset]] in preparation for the [[1965 Israeli legislative election|1965 elections]]. The alliance brought together the only two right-wing parties in the [[Knesset]], each with 17 seats at the time. The Liberal Party had only been formed in 1961, by a merger of the [[General Zionists]] and the [[Progressive Party (Israel)|Progressive Party]]. The Gahal platform largely incorporated Herut's approach to security and foreign affairs and the Liberal Party's approach to economics and finance.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/politicsofcompro0000birn |url-access=registration |title=The Politics of Compromise: State and Religion in Israel |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press |author=Ervin Birnbaum |year=1970 |isbn=08386-7567-0|page=[https://archive.org/details/politicsofcompro0000birn/page/64 64]}}</ref> Though Gahal was led by Begin, Herut and the Liberals initially had nearly equal strength in the alliance.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7NFMDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT140 |title=The Government and Politics of Israel |author=Don Peretz and Gideon Doron |publisher=Perseus |year=1997 |edition=3 |page=140|isbn=9780429974120 }}</ref>

However, several former Liberal Party members were unhappy with the alliance, identifying Herut and its leader, Menachem Begin, as too right-wing. As a result, seven MKs broke away from the Liberal Party to form the [[Independent Liberals (Israel)|Independent Liberals]], which later merged into the [[Left-wing politics|left-wing]] [[Alignment (political party)|Alignment]]. Nevertheless, the new party went into the elections with 27 seats, just seven less than [[Mapai]], the party that had dominated Israeli politics since independence, although Mapai also had been reduced in size due to a breakaway of eight MKs led by [[David Ben-Gurion]] to found [[Rafi (political party)|Rafi]].

Led by Begin, in its first electoral test Gahal won 26 seats. However, it was outperformed by the Alignment (a new left-wing alliance of Mapai and [[Ahdut HaAvoda]]) which won 46 seats. Gahal was reduced in strength when three of its MKs broke away to form the [[Free Centre]], and a fourth later left.

During the [[Six-Day War]], Alignment leader and [[Prime Minister of Israel|Prime Minister]] [[Levi Eshkol]] invited Gahal to join a [[national unity government]]. The party remained in the government after the war, and kept its place when [[Golda Meir]] became Prime Minister following Eshkol's death in 1969.

In the [[1969 Israeli legislative election|October 1969 elections]] Gahal maintained its 26-seat strength, but was comprehensively beaten by the Alignment, which won 56, in the strongest-ever election performance in Israeli political history. Nevertheless, Gahal remained within the national unity government. The announcement of the [[Rogers Plan]] on 9 December had alarmed Menachem Begin sufficiently to cause the Herut faction to stop haggling with the Labor Party and accept the six cabinet seats offered in the new government. At the UN, a similar American proposal to [[Jordan]] on 18 December, explicitly calling for Israeli withdrawal from the [[West Bank]], removed any remaining differences between Gahal and the Prime Minister, since they both saw this as a challenge requiring a blunt and energetic response.<ref>{{cite journal |jstor=4328055 |title=US-Soviet Negotiations of 1969 and the Rogers Plan |author=David A. Korn |author-link=David A. Korn |journal=Middle East Journal |volume=44 |issue=1 |date=Winter 1990 |pages=37–50 |publisher=Middle East Institute}}</ref> However, Gahal pulled out of the coalition in August 1970 after the government announced its support for the Rogers Plan. Although the government later retracted its support for the plan, Gahal did not rejoin the coalition.

Before the [[1973 Israeli legislative election|1973 elections]], Gahal and several smaller right-wing parties (including its former breakaway the Free Centre, the [[National List]] (a small party founded by David Ben-Gurion after he had left Rafi) and the non-parliamentary [[Movement for Greater Israel]]) to form a new alliance named [[Likud]], the Hebrew word for 'consolidation'. Although Likud failed to overcome the Alignment in the 1973 elections, it comfortably won the [[1977 Israeli legislative election|next elections]] in 1977, ousting the left from power for the first time in Israel's history.

===Composition===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! colspan=2| Name
! Ideology
! Position
! Leader
! [[Knesset|Former MKs]]
|-
| style="background: {{party color|Herut}}"|
| style="width:200px" | [[Herut]]
| style="width:180px" | [[Revisionist Zionism]]<br />[[National conservatism]]
| style="width:100px" | [[Right-wing politics|Right-wing]]
| style="width:150px" | [[Menachem Begin]]
| {{Composition bar|15|120|{{party color|Herut}}}}
|-
| style="background: {{party color|Liberal Party (Israel)}}"|
| style="width:200px" | [[Liberal Party (Israel)|Libralit]]
| style="width:180px" | [[Liberalism]]<br />[[Centrism]]
| style="width:100px" | [[Centre-right politics|Centre-right]]
| style="width:150px" | [[Peretz Bernstein]]<br />[[Yosef Serlin]]
| {{Composition bar|11|120|{{party color|Liberal Party (Israel)}}}}
|-
|}