Nearly half-a-million organized Israel workers went to 1,800 polls throughout the country today to elect 800 delegates to the eighth national Histadrut conference. At the same time, elections were held for the forthcoming agricultural workers conference. All government and private offices and businesses granted their employees two hours off to vote and special arrangements were made for union members in the armed forces.
The election campaign aroused keen interest throughout the country because it is expected to give some indication of how the forthcoming parliamentary elections this summer will go. Entered in the lists today were the representatives of seven groups. The Mapai, Mapam, Leachdut Avodah, Haoved Hazioni, General Zionist workers group, and Communists and a local Mapai group.
The “big guns” of all the major parties concentrated on the campaign this week-end. Defense Minister David Ben Gurion, speaking in Haifa, called for pioneers to settle the southern Negev, asserting that most of Israel’s exports will eventually come from that area. He predicted that Eilath would become a greater port than Haifa and, touching upon the Egyptian blockade of the Suez Canal, said that the Egyptians would have to “reckon with our armed forces if passage of the Red Sea (by Israel vessels) is interfered with.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
