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The Organisation for Democratic Action is a political party in Israel, where it is commonly known as Da'am (Arabic: دعم, Hebrew: דע"ם).
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Name
The party has slightly different names in Arabic and Hebrew. As it was founded as a largely Israeli Arab organisation, its name originates from Arabic, and is an Arabic acronym for the translation of the English name (Arabic: يمقراطي عمل منظمة, Demokrat Amal Menzema). In Hebrew, the acronym Da'am is meaningless, and in order to give an understanding of the party's leanings, the full name is extended to Da'am Workers Party (Hebrew: דע"ם - מפלגת פועלים, Da'am - Mifleget Poalim).
Background and ideology
The party was founded in Haifa in 1995 as a breakaway from Maki, the Communist Party of Israel. Although the party is theoretically non-ethnic, in reality it is largely an Israeli Arab party. Of the first fourteen candidates on its list for the 2006 election there were only three Jews compared to eleven Israeli Arabs. As a result of its background, it is strongly left-wing, supports workers rights (particularly those of Israeli Arabs), disapproves of discrimination, and has an internationalist worldview. The party supports the right of the Palestinian people to found an indepdendent state based on the 1967 borders and is against Israel unilaterlism and occupation of the Palestinian territories. It also opposes political Islam Members of the party were involved in the establishment of the Workers Advice Center (Ma'an), "an initiative for building an independent labor association". Ma'an supports unemployed and unorganised (non-Union) workers. It is the only political party in Israel headed by an Israeli Arab woman, Asma Agbarieh. The party produces the monthly English-language magazine Challenge [1], as well as the Arabic al Sabar [2] and the Hebrew quarterly Etgar [3].
Elections
In the 1999 elections the party won only 2,151 votes (0.06%), well below the electoral threshold of 1.5%. The 2003 elections saw a fall in support to just 1,925 votes, though their percentage (0.06%) remained roughly the same due to a reduced turnout. Nevertheless, they still did not pass the threshold. In the 2006 elections the party more than doubled its support, winning 3,692 votes (0.11%). However, with the raising of the threshold to 2%, they were even further away from making it into the Knesset.
