
Still smarting from the drubbing it received at the polls in
the February 2009 elections, Israel's New Movement-Meretz party has marked the
summer of 2010 as its time of renewal.
Spearheading a membership drive that ends on August 30,
Meretz leaders - including MKs Chaim Oron, Nitzan Horowitz and Ilan Gilon, and
former MKs Naomi Chazan, Abu Vilan and Mossi Raz - have been crisscrossing the
country, addressing crowds large and small, seeking to solidify the party's
base and re-grow its rank and file.
It won't be easy, but it's crucial that the party succeed,
since Meretz today represents the last true bastion of progressive Zionism in
Israel's Knesset (notwithstanding the smattering of progressives in Labor and
Kadima).