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THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
Ptga Thirteen
Friday, Apr. 4, 1969
DATELINE JERUSALEM
Political Decision
By ELIAHU SALPETER
JERUSALEM—
The heart attack which put a
sudden end to the life of Prime
Minister Levi Eshkol at the age
of 73, also forced on Israel’s pol
itics—and on the dominant Is
rael Labor Party in particular—
decisions which everyone desired
and hoped to postpone for anoth
er four to five months.
The present National Unity
Government which includes both
the traditional coalition and the
leading opposition party, was
formed on the very eve of the
Six-Day War, at the end of May,
1967. Dissatisfaction over the hes
itancy of the Cabinet in dealing
with the growing menace of
Egypt’s hostile actions had reach
ed the stage of street demonstra
tions which finally compelled the
veteran Maptai Party leaders to
take the Rafi Party into the Gov
ernment and give Gen. Moshe
Dayan the Ministry of Defense,
and to bring in Gahal, the union
of the Herut and Liberal Parties
whose leaders, Menahem Beigin
and Josef Sapir, respectively, be
came ministers without portfolio.
Gahal found the situation of
membership in the National
Unity Government, but without
responsibility for specific mini
stries, quite satisfactory. Parlia
mentary elections were due in
October 28, 1969 and the arrange
ment would permit the Gahal
candidates to enter the lists
under the best possible condi
tions: they were the responsible
people who had made a national
unity government possible and
who had helped compel Mapai
to yield the defense ministry to
Gen. Dayan. At the same time,
they would be able to proclaim
that they had prevented the
“doves” from making rash con
cessions to the Arabs. Moreover,
they could disavow all blame for
mistakes and failures in domes
tic policy charged to the govern
ment.
Mapai found itself in quite a
different position. With Gen.
Dayan in the Cabinet and prob
ably the most popular man in
Israel, the younger elements in
the party mounted pressure on
the party veterans to heal the
Mapai-Rafi breach and bring
Rafi back into the party. Deter
mined efforts by Mrs. Golda
Meir, the party’s secretary-gen
eral, and Pinhas Sapir, the then
Finance Minister, could not
block the merger but they did
succeed in pairing it with the
simultaneous merger with Ach-
dut Avodah, a labor party slight
ly to the left of Maprai.
This served somewhat to lessen
the influence of Rafi and the
younger Mapai generation since
the veteran leaders of Achdut
Avodah found themselves closer
to the Mapai veterans than to
Rafi, and Achdut Avodah’s Yigal
Allon, a former general popular
with the younger generation,
could be a counter-figure to Gen.
Dayan.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sapir became
secretary-general of the United
Labor Party and the fight for
the leadership began quietly but
in earnest. The electoral reform
bill, Rafi’s pet project, was
pigeonholed until after the elec
tions; Sapir begah to consolidate
his hold on the party machinery
and Gen. Allon was made Dep
uty Prime Minister, to help
build up his image as heir-ap
parent to Mr. Eshkol. But each
and every public opinion poll
showed Gen. Dayan receiving
more and more support as suc
cessor to the Premiership.
However, everyone Wanted Mr.
Eshkol to continue as Prime Min-"’
ister until the elections. The vet
erans of Map>ai and Achdut Avo
dah hoped that by the time the
elections rolled around, Allon’s
popularity would be sufficiently
high, if not among the public, at
least in the party organization
to give him the Number Two
position on the ticket after Mr.
Eshkol. Then he could be eased
into the premiership by having
Mr. Eshkol resign a few months
after his reelection. Mr. Sapir,
moreover, began to display some
signs of considering himself as a
possible successor to Mr. Eshkol,
but he acted in awareness of the
delicacy of the situation.
•Gen. Dayan knew that the
Party veterans would seek to pre
vent him from becoming Prime
Minister and would even try to
prevent his reappjointment as
Minister of Defense after the
elections. He had three choices,
short of quitting the race: to
make a deal with Gen. Allon; to
build up sufficient strength inside
the party and among the coalition
partners to force the veterans to
give him the premiership, or to
align on his side a sufficient large
segment of the leadership with a
fair chance of polling enough
votes to become the second largest
party in the Knesset. He would
thus become the only possible
compromise candidate to head a
coalition government
The strategy of each of these
forces—Gahal, Allon, Sapir and
Dayan—required several months
intensive preliminary work which
should have come to fruition
about 60 days before the elections
with the deadline for final sub
mission of the party slates of
candidates. But Mr. Eshkol’s un
timely death upset ill the time
tables. Observers speculated that
the veterans controllng the party
organization would be the first
to recover. Gen, layan would
find it difficult to oppx>se Mrs.
Meir as interim pime minister
until the elections bit, with Mrs.
Meir in office, obsevers believe,
the odds would lie with his op>-
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