About 5000 persons signed Capt. Mordechai Ashkenazi’s petition calling for the resignation of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan during his two-day vigil outside the Prime Minister’s Office here which ended last night. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned meanwhile that the young reserve officer, a veteran of the Yom Kippur War, has been invited to testify before the judicial committee investigating the conduct of the war. The committee is headed by Supreme Court Justice Shimon Agranat.
Ashkenazi, apparently elated by the response to his one-man campaign for the departure of Dayan, asked reporters to publish his home address so that supporters could write to him. He said he planned to resume his demonstration next Sunday by going on a hunger strike. He said he expected hundreds to join him. The Hebrew University Students Union expressed support of Ashkenazi’s demands. So have a group of young activists within the Labor Alignment. The latter said they were not opposed to Dayan personally but were upholding the principle of ministerial responsibility.
Ashkenazi, who commanded the only Israeli unit on the Suez Canal to hold out against the Egyptian onslaught in the first days of the Yom Kippur War, says he holds Dayan directly responsible for Israel’s military deficiencies last Oct. in his capacity of Minister of Defense. He said he had offered repeatedly to testify before the Agranat committee. Committee sources informed the JTA that it will start next week taking testimony from hundreds of officers and men who participated in the fighting. Until now the committee has heard only from ministers and senior staff officers.
Ashkenazi, camped for two days on a parking lot outside the Premier’s Office, was visited by Knesset members representing various parties. They included Yitzhak Ben Aharon, Arye Eliav. Yossi Sarid, Chaika Grossman, Dov Zakin and Eliezer Ronnen of the Labor Alignment; Avra-ham Katz and Ehud Olmert of Likud; Shulamit Aloni and Dr. Boaz Moav of the Civil Rights List and Meir Payil of Moked.
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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.
