Under the agreement, Meretz and Labor continue as separate corporate and budgetary entities, and their factions in the Histadrut, municipal councils and other bodies outside the Knesset will not be unified at this stage but will cooperate.

Meretz became the major coalition partner of Yitzhak Rabin's Labor Party, helping pave the way for the Oslo Accords.

The 1999 elections saw the party regain its former strength, picking up 10 seats, including the first-ever female Israeli Arab MK, Hussniya Jabara, while Shinui (now effectively led by TV celebrity journalist Tommy Lapid, although Poraz remained its formal leader) won six seats.

However, after Likud leader Ariel Sharon defeated Barak in a special Prime Ministerial election in 2001, Meretz left the government.

On 22 October 2002, Meretz MK Uzi Even made history by becoming the first openly gay Member of Knesset, after Amnon Rubinstein retired.

Sarid immediately took responsibility and resigned from leadership, though he did not retire from the Knesset and continued serving as an MK, before stepping down before the 2006 elections.

The new party was established to unite and resuscitate the Israeli Zionist peace camp, which had been soundly defeated in the 2003 elections (dropping from 56 Knesset members in 1992 to 24 in 2003) following the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

[citation needed] In March 2004, Yossi Beilin was elected party leader, defeating Ran Cohen, and started a two-year term as the first chairman of Yachad.

In 2007, Tzvia Greenfield, sixth on the party list, became the first-ever female ultra-Orthodox Knesset member, following Yossi Beilin's decision to retire from politics.

Oron went on to win the internal elections held on 18 March 2008 with 54.5% of the vote, defeating Ran Cohen (27.1%) and Zehava Galon (18.1%) to become Meretz's new chairman.

This electoral loss was largely attributed to traditionally left-wing voters choosing to strategically vote for Kadima, in an effort to get Tzipi Livni to head the next government, instead of Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud.

As a result, MKs Zehava Galon, Ilan Gilon, and youth activist Ori Ophir began campaigning to win the position of party chairman.

[25] However, once absentee and soldier ballots were counted, Meretz gained a fifth seat, negating the premise for Gal-On's earlier announcement,[26] and she announced that she would continue as party leader,[27] saying: "Meretz received a fifth seat from young supporters, from Israeli soldiers, who raised the party's rate of support.

Prior to the March 2020 elections, the party joined an alliance with Labor and Gesher, which won seven seats, three of them held by Meretz.

After winning six seats in the March 2021 elections, Meretz joined a coalition government alongside Yesh Atid, Blue and White, Yamina, the Labor Party, Yisrael Beiteinu, New Hope and the United Arab List.

[47][48][49][50] Meretz protested against the 2018 Nation-State Bill and petitioned the Supreme Court of Israel to invalidate the legislation, arguing it was discriminatory against Arabs and the Druze.

[58] WUM affiliates include the London-based Meretz UK, France's Cercle Bernard Lazare and the USA's Partners for Progressive Israel.

The World Union of Meretz has representation in other organizations, including the Jewish National Fund and the Zionist General Council.

Hashomer Hatzair, a progressive Zionist youth movement with branches in many countries, was informally associated with Meretz; it had previously been affiliated with Mapam.

American Jewish comedian Sarah Silverman, whose sister Susan moved from the US to Israel and is a Reform rabbi there, asked Israeli voters to choose Meretz in the 2015 election.