[20] As Israel made its transition from a developing nation into an economically prosperous one, a highly educated middle class emerged, tracing its historical political orientation to Labor Zionism.

[21] Shinui was established by business people and academics in 1974, following the 1973 Arab–Israeli Yom Kippur War, which shook the Israeli public.

It also pioneered the use of primaries to choose its electoral list, something that was intended to show its democratic credentials and prevent cronyism.

While the Liberal Party had formed an alliance with Herut in the Likud bloc, Shinui was dovish and allied with the Labor Alignment.

Although Shinui leader Amnon Rubinstein supported the merger, most party members sought to distance themselves from the leftist social-democratic elements in Meretz.

Two MKs (out of the nine Meretz won in the 1996 elections) broke away to re-establish Shinui as an independent party in 1997 under the leadership of Avraham Poraz.

However, this approach did not yield the party any new voters, and opinion polls predicted that Shinui would not make it past the threshold.

Meanwhile, Avraham Poraz's views and political activities, combined with his distance from Meretz's leftist stances and lack of public association between the two, won the support of TV celebrity Tommy Lapid, who was known for his fierce rhetoric against religious coercion.

In the elections, Shinui won 6 seats, and announced its refusal to join any coalition that includes the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism.

[24] In July 2004, a tape recording of Shinui MK and Minister of Infrastructure Yosef Paritzki was exposed by Ayala Hasson.

In August 2004, Sharon initiated coalition negotiations with several other parties after he lost the government majority required to support his disengagement plan.

The tape reached Maariv, which at the time was running its "Where is the Shame" anti-corruption campaign led by its editor Amnon Dankner and top columnist Dan Margalit.

In a surprise result, Ron Levintal beat Poraz in the contest for second place on the party's list behind Lapid (who was re-elected with 53% of the votes).

[27][28] By then, a total of eleven MKs had left Shinui and formed a new party, the Secular Faction (later renamed Hetz), led by Poraz and supported by Lapid.

Before the elections, Levintal made several conciliatory gestures toward Hetz, attempting negotiations with them, the anti-corruption Tafnit party led by Uzi Dayan, and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak over the prospect of forming a united front, but to no avail.

Despite nearly 30 years of public support of liberal-capitalist economic and social policies, its best known platform plank is a call for separation of religion and state within the confines of Zionist ideology.

It demands civil marriage (although it has opposed a bill to enact it in March 2004), the operation of public transportation, businesses, theaters, etc., on Shabbat, removal of laws concerning selling and importing non-kosher food, drafting of ultra-Orthodox Jews into the IDF, and a halt to payments to yeshiva students.

Because of such demands, and the inflammatory tone of its current leadership, it was sometimes accused of being anti-religious or hating the religious, and so, some, including many secular people who would otherwise agree with its platform, would not vote for it.

Shinui also supported the anti-terrorist policies of Ariel Sharon's government, such as the killing of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin.

Accordingly, Lapid requested and received the Justice and Internal Affairs ministries when in government (the latter having been formerly held by Shas).