Founded in 2006, the Pensioners’ party or Gil (“Age” in Hebrew) came to prominence in Tel Aviv’s 2003 municipal elections. In the national 2006 elections, the Pensioners won seven seats in the Knesset in its first-ever parliamentary race. The party received significant support from Israeli youth who supported it as a protest against parties marred by political scandals and corruption. The chairman of the Pensioners’ Party is ex-Mossad chief Rafi Eitan, who was the architect behind the capture of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann. The Pensioners’ party runs on a platform that calls for increasing pension benefits for the 750,000 retirees who receive pensions in Israel. Other central goals include improved medical care for the elderly, guaranteed pensions, and subsidized public housing.
The party adopts a centrist stance with regard to the peace process with the Palestinians and has suggested that it is open to territorial compromise and the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state. Eitan is opposed, however, to allowing East Jerusalem to become the Palestinian capital.
Sources: The Israel Project