Behind the Headlines Nrp Facing Its Worst Internal Crisis

The National Religious Party (NRP), with six Knesset seats the largest partner in Premier Menachem Begin’s Likud-led coalition government, is facing its worst internal crisis in years. The party’s two main factions — Lamifne, led by Interior Minister Yosef Burg, and the Young Guard, headed by Education Minister Zevulun Hammer — are each threatening a “power struggle to the bitter end.”

The latest confrontation between the frequently warring factions was touched off when Burg, who also holds the portfolio of Religious Affairs Minister, fired the director general of that ministry, Gedalia Shreiber, last week. Shreiber was appointed to his post by the former Religious Affairs Minister, Aharon Abu-Hatzeira who quit the NRP shortly before the Knesset elections last June and formed his own faction, Tami.

Shreiber considers Burg his personal and political enemy. When the present Cabinet was formed, the Young Guard agreed to have Burg take over the Religious Affairs Ministry on condition that he retain Shreiber. Burg was forced to agree at the time but he never concealed his desire to install his own man, Rabbi Moshe Salomon, a member of his Lamifne faction.

The Young Guard apparently wants to protect Shreiber’s job in order to retain the loyalty of at least some members of still another NRP faction, the Likud Utemura which Abu-Hatzeira headed before his defection.

READY FOR A SHOWDOWN

Burg argues that it is the right of every Cabinet minister to appoint his own director general. But he has been challenged on that point by rivals in the NRP. At the request of Hammer, the Cabinet Sunday deferred approval of Shreiber’s dismissal for one week. The Young Guard, meanwhile, has appealed on Shreiber’s behalf to the “party supreme court,” the body that adjudicates disputes within the NRP. Their argument is that Burg reneged on his pledge to retain Shreiber. Burg warned that he would not tolerate party interference in his ministerial functions.

More significantly, Burg now says he is ready once and for all for a showdown with Hammer in the party’s Central Committee. This means that he and Hammer will stand for the office of Religious Affairs Minister. Should Burg lose, his primacy and that of Lamifne in the NRP would be at an end.

Burg’s top political organizer, Rafael Ben-Natan, says he is confident that the Young Guard will suffer a crushing defeat in an all-out contest of strength within the party. But whichever faction wins, the NRP would face a serious schism and possible secession by the loser.