Since his departure from politics, Burg has caused controversy by comparing Israel to 1930s Germany, calling for the repeal of the Law of Return, and pushing for Israel no longer to be called a Jewish state. He became a citizen of France, and voted by absentee ballot against French president Nicolas Sarkozy in the last election there.

At a rally in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood last week, Burg told reporters that a new party was needed because Meretz had too much baggage and supported Israel’s recent wars. He said there were emotional reasons that many Jews could not support the joint Arab-Jewish Hadash list.

In an article he wrote introducing the party on the Huffington Post Web site, Burg called Shai “a party of good tidings” at a time when there was no real change blowing in the wind. He called Kadima shallow and Shas a corpse, and mocked his former colleagues in Labor’s young guard as still waiting to “plan their grand attack.”

“[Shai] will sail far beyond the paradigms of classic Zionism, which to this day ignores the place of Israel’s Arabs,” Burg wrote. “It will demand full equality for all Israel’s citizens, the kind of equality we demand for the Jews in the Diaspora wherever they live.”

Burg said his party would cooperate with anyone willing to return to peaceful borders and to help end the occupation and all the injustices that spring from it. It would also push to change the political system.