An estimated 10,000 Israelis participated in a mass demonstration here this morning to denounce the government’s economic policies which they blamed for the surging inflation rate. The demonstration was organized by Histadrut whose Secretary General, Yeruhom Meshel, demanded that Finance Minister Yigal Hurwitz resign.
It was conducted while the Cabinet was holding its regular weekly meeting in the Prime Minister’s Office. Hurwitz, for his part, told his colleagues that Histadrut deliberately torpedoed his attempts to work out a wage-price “package deal” to stem inflation. He accused the labor federation of trying to cling to the special advantages enjoyed by its pension funds. But Hurwitz also had sharp words for some of his fellow ministers who he said were balking at Treasury efforts to hold down government spending.
INFLATION RATE SPIRALS UPWARD
The demonstration and the angry recriminations in the Cabinet were sparked by figures released here Friday that showed inflation soaring to a rate of 138 percent and the cost-of-living index up by 11 percent in October, the second largest monthly increase in Israel’s history and the highest since November, 1977. Those figures sent shock waves through the population and the political establishment. According to unofficial forecasts, the November figures will be still higher. The inflation rate for the final quarter of 1980 is expected to be in the order of 200 percent, considerably higher than when Hurwitz took over the Finance Ministry from Simcha Ehrlich a year ago and announced that the battle against inflation would be his top priority.
Hurwitz had recently intimated that he had inflation under control. The rate seemed to be slackening. Last August it was only 8.2 percent. Reacting to the October figures today, he blamed the government as a whole for his failure to stem the tide — meaning that various ministers were refusing to accept cuts in their ministry budgets.
Hurwitz denied however that he was planning to resign and pull his Rafi faction out of the Likud-led coalition government. But he has warned repeatedly in the past that he would strike out on his own if the Likud ministers failed to give full support to his economic policies. Potential supporters of a separate Rafi list in next year’s elections have called on Hurwitz to link up with former foreign Minister Moshe Dayan to establish a new right-of-center political faction.
Dayan, who attended the Rafi meeting in Tel Aviv last week, said he did not favor a new party “at this time” but indicated he did not rule out that option for the future. Some pollsters give a Dayan-Hurwitz faction up to ten seats in the next Knesset.
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