Former Premier David Ben-Gurion, continuing his battle against Premier Levi Eshkol’s leadership, asserted here last night that Israel was “tired of the present regime of corruption.”
Speaking at a meeting of the Tel Aviv branch of the Israel Worker’s Party (Rafi), he said: “What kind of an irresponsible government is it that raises salaries by 25 percent before an election and afterwards organizes a movement of salary waivers to get the pay increases back from the wage earners?”
The latter portion of Mr. Ben-Gurion’s statement was a reference to a wave of voluntary pledges by a wide range of Israeli workers to yield part of their pay increases and even part of their wages. However, Mr. Ben-Gurion was the first to charge that the waivers had been organized by Mr. Eshkol’s Government. Rafi is the dissident movement formed by Mr. Ben-Gurion last year to challenge Mr. Eshkol’s leadership.
The former Premier called on his dissident party to “point the way in political life by encouraging voluntary work and by seeing to it that not everything is ruled by a party machine with endless financial resources.”
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