The Speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, was formally notified today of the existence of two competing Communist parties in Israel, following a split yesterday within the Communist Party in this country. The Communists hold five seats in the Knesset, and the split will divide the five into two separate factions.
Notification was submitted by the extremist faction, headed by Meir Wilnew and Tufik Toubi, which consists mainly of Arabs. Both Wilner and Toubi are members of the Knesset. The more moderate faction, made up of Jews and headed by Shmuel Mikunis and Moshe Sneh–also members of the Knesset–continues to call itself the Israel Communist Party.
Intervention by a Soviet delegation invited to what had been originally scheduled as the regular party convention here five weeks ago averted a split at that time. The differences reached the irreconcilable point when the party’s central committee failed to approve last Thursday a political report by Mikunis as party secretary-general. Kol Haam, the party newspaper, published an announcement yesterday by the party central committee that all efforts to preserve party unity had failed.
The differences concern Arab-Israel relations, the Soviet-Chinese ideological clash and attitudes toward Premier Levi Eshkol’s Government. While both factions oppose the Government and its policies, the majority is more moderate.
Kol Haam also published two separate invitations to the conventions planned by each faction here. The Mikunis-Sneh faction will hold its convention tonight. The other group will hold its convention in the same hall Friday night.
Mikunis was expected to outline at his faction’s conclave tonight his proposals for solving the Israel-Arab deadlock, calling for concessions by Israel to the Arabs in exchange for Arab recognition of Israel, agreement on freedom of navigation for Israeli shipping in the Suez Canal and final agreement on sharing of the Jordan River waters.
It was reported that the Communist Party in the Soviet Union would probably recognize the majority faction because it includes Mikunis and Comptroller Avi Bretstein, whose annual reports are considered binding by the international Communist movement. A special committee will decide on distribution of the party’s assets to the two factions.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
