Government Given 62-0 Vote of Confidence; Opposition Factions Stalk out of Knesset

Premier Golda Meir’s government won a 62-0 vote of confidence in the Knesset today following an uproarous debate on territorial issues in which proposals made by Mrs. Meir in an interview published in the London Times last Saturday were the main points of contention. The lopsided vote did not reflect the weight of the opposition faction whose members stalked out of the chamber during a bitter wrangle over voting procedures and cast no votes. But Knesset observers said that at most only 30 votes would have been cast against the government if there had been no walk-out. Mrs. Meir was clearly on the defensive, however, as she denied charges by the opposition Gahal and Free Center factions that the territorial position she staked out for Israel in the Times’ interview contained concessions she had no authority to make. Mrs. Meir devoted a large part of her statement to explaining the interview which she said, was published from notes and not a verbatim transcript. She said Times’ deputy editor Louis Heren hardly once quoted her directly, sometimes changed the order of what was said and did not always bring out clearly the full significance of the points she made.

Mrs. Meir repeated the main points published in the interview: 1) Jerusalem will remain united and part of Israel; 2) Israel will not withdraw from the Golan Heights which dominate the Huleh Valley; 3) The Jordan River must never be open for Arab troops to cross; 4) Israel opposes an independent Palestinian state on the Wes, Bank, and 5) Israel must have secure, recognized frontiers to be determined by negotiations and which cannot be substituted for by international guarantees. The Gahal faction and some members of the National Religious Party, one of Mrs. Meir’s coalition partners. had objected to the Times interview on grounds that the Premier drew “maps” at a stage when it was dangerous and unnecessary to do so. Menachem Beigin, leader of Gahal’s Herut faction, charged in the debate that Mrs. Meir had acted without legal or public authority to “re-partition the Homeland.” He claimed that statements she made to the Times editor contradicted long standing pledges by her own Labor Party. He referred to her published assertion that Israel “shall not leave the Golan Heights” because “we have paid something for it” and asked rhetorically, “Have we paid only for the Golan and not for Judaea and Samaria?”

Beigin also criticized Mrs. Meir for offering to negotiate new frontiers with Jordan that would not necessarily be marked by the Jordan River. He said if Jordanian soldiers did not cross the river in the future, saboteurs would and the Jordanian police would not hold them back. Shmuel Tamir, of the Free Center, one of the two factions that introduced no-confidence motions, accused Mrs. Meir of leaning toward the Rogers Plan calling for only minor territorial adjustments which both the government and the Knesset had rejected. Haim Tzadok, speaking for Mrs. Meir’s Labor Alignment, defended the Premier. He said the government had never declared that it would refuse to give up any territory. The Knesset walk-out was precipitated by a dispute over whether to have a roll-call vote or a secret bailot. Beigin demanded a secret vote and his party stalwarts shouted catcalls, drummed the floor and pounded their desks while Justice Minister Yacob Shimshon Shapira tried to adjudicate the matter. When the Knesset decided to vote on how to vote, the Gahal faction rose and walked out of the chamber, followed by the Free Center and the Rafi State List, both splinter opposition parties. Twelve MKs abstained from the final vote. They included some members of the NRP, the Agudat Israel and the pro-Moscow Rakach Communist faction.