The Labor Party is interested in the votes of the Russian sector which refuses to grant it significant support in the elections. This refusal is a direct result of the alienated approach of the Labor movement itself: since the large wave of immigration from the Former Soviet Union began, the movement did not help one iota in absorbing Russian new immigrants, did not attend to the multitudinous problems that perturbed them, and did not make any effort to integrate them culturally and socially.
This alienating – or even disparaging – approach is also evident in the political sphere. Russian new immigrants were randomly placed on the Knesset list, and the Labor movement avoided fostering any shining political figures from among the new immigrants, who may have brought in many votes. Consequently, the Labor movement has nothing in common with the new Russian aliyah.
