public dissatisfaction with this system led to revolutionary legislation, approved by the Knesset in 1992: starting in the next general election (due in 1996), Israelis will elect their prime minister directly, in addition to a party. The elected prime minister will thus no longer be fundamentally dependent on Knesset support for the stability of his/her government. Small parties, to be sure, are trying to repeal this law, which threatens to cut dramatically into their political power.

The two major parties are Labor (in Hebrew A voda, sometimes still referred to by its old name Ma’arakh, the Alignment) and Likud. Labor’s roots are in old-style Labor Zionism, and the Likud is still strongly influenced by Revisionist Zionism. Likud, now led by Binyamin Natanyahu, is thus the more right-wing of the two, pursuing a hard-line approach to the problem of the occupied territories. I-abor, led by Yitzhak hRabin, tends to be leftofcenter and is willing to make territorial concessions for peace. The 1984 and 1988 elections ended in ties, with the two big parties forming National Unity Governments, which were largely paralyzed by internal dissent. In 1991), Yitzhak Shamir formed a Likud-led government supported by religious and far-right parties. But a general election in June 1992 decisively ousted Shamir and replaced him with a dovish, pragmatic Labor-led government under Prime Minister Rabin. Labor won 44 Knesset seats to Likud’s 32, out of 120 total.