Rafi Faction to Support New Government

The Labor Party’s Rafi faction decided today to support Premier Golda Meir’s new government and called on its leaders, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and Transport Minister Shimon Peres, to reverse their decisions not to serve in the new Cabinet. The move by the ex-Rafi members of the Labor Party’s Central Committee meeting here considerably improved Mrs. Meir’s prospects for setting up a stable minority government. Mrs. Meir mean while indicated that she would postpone for a day or two the presentation of her new Cabinet slate to President Ephraim Katzir. She had planned to do this tomorrow. Some sources interpreted her delay as a sign of renewed hope that Dayan and Peres would agree to serve.

It was not immediately clear whether they would heed their Rafi colleagues’ call to serve or that of Foreign Minister Abba Eban who urged them to reconsider in a public statement today. Eban said Israel’s internal and external needs required that both ministers remain in office.

Today’s Rafi action removed mounting apprehension that Mrs. Meir would have to call for new elections before she could establish a new government. She would have been forced to take such action had the Rafi faction agreed to the demands of some of its militants to vote against the new government when it is presented to the Knesset, probably next Monday.

Meanwhile, the National Religious Party postponed until tomorrow a decision on its voting stance. The party was reported to be giving serious consideration to a new proposal offered by the Labor Alignment today that would circumvent the Who is a Jew dispute for one year. Labor proposed a special law abolishing the nationality and religion rubric in the identification cards issued to new immigrants for one year so as to avoid conflicting interpretations of which of them is a Jew. During that period both parties would try to find a mutually acceptable solution of the Who is a Jew problem.