Former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announced his intention here last night to carry his struggle with Premier Levi Eshkol over the leadership of Mapai to the party’s 200,000 members and an equal number of supporters in what he described as an effort to prevent Herut leader Menachem Beigin from coming to power in the wake of the Mapai split. Mr. Ben-Gurion addressed a two-day ideological meeting at which Haifa Mayor Abba Khoushy was conspicuous by his absence giving rise to the speculation that he and the strong Haifa branch of Mapai were against the split in the party.
Mr. Ben-Gurion said he would go to the rank and file membership “to clear the atmosphere, improve the hitherto deteriorated moral level and save the country from the danger of Beigin coming to power.” He said that the current Mapai leadership and the deterioration in the morality that had set in within the party during the past two years are a source of danger which might bring Mr. Beigin to power.
Meanwhile, another effort to prevent a final split in Mapai today was unsuccessful. The abortive attempt was made in a four-hour meeting between the majority leaders on the one hand headed by Premier Levi Eshkol, and Ben-Gurion supporters, former Agriculture Minister Dayan and former deputy Defense Minister Shimon Peres. During the meeting, Mr. Eshkol was believed to have rejected a proposal by the minority that the President of the Supreme Court study the Attorney General’s recommendations regarding the “Lavon affair”–which triggered the entire split–with the Chief Justice reporting on his findings after the forthcoming Knesset elections.
More Mapai workers committees Joined today the outcry against the split and voiced support for the party’s central institutions. These committees represent thousands of Israeli workers. Former Premier and Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett came out with a statement in Davar, organ of the Histadrut, declaring that he considered it his duty to state publicly that he was among those who, “while acknowledging Ben-Gurion’s great services, cannot regard him as the only source of truth and Justice and the sole embodiment of the ethics and moral values of our movement.”
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