Highlighting of Jabotinsky’s Role Stirs Political Passions at the 30th World Zionist Congress

A seemingly innocuous event stirred deep political passions at last night’s opening of the 30th World Zionist Congress in the Jerusalem convention hall.

It was a pageant depicting Zionist history in slides, music performed by the Israel Defense Force orchestra and choral pieces. Not surprisingly, each mention of Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of the Zionist Revisionist movement and spiritual father of Herut, was greeted with wild applause from his latter-day disciples.

Labor Zionists were equally clamorous at the mention of the late David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister and long time leader of the Labor Party. But the Laborites were irked because Jabotinsky’s name was mentioned four times before there was any reference to Ben Gurion.

Yehiel Leket, chairman of the Labor Zionist movement, walked out to protest what he said was “falsification of Zionist history and Zionist truth.” The role of the Revisionist leader was exaggerated and that of Israel’s first Prime Minister diminished, he charged.

Zvi Eyal, a spokesman for the World Zionist Organization, said later that the pageant had been commissioned for the Congress from the Information Center, a unit within the Prime Minister’s office.

The battle continued today when the Labor Zionists issued a statement condemning “the re-writing of Zionist history at the Congress.” The statement charged that there was an attempt to minimize the contributions of the Labor movement, which carried the burden of establishing the State of Israel, and to advance the role of the Revisionists, which the Laborites called “a marginal movement” in its historical impact.