Israel Cabinet Meeting on Government Crisis Postponed for Sunday

The special meeting of the Israel Cabinet called for today to deal with the Government crisis precipitated by the public attack of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion on the seven members of the Cabinet who, as a special Ministerial Committee, exoerated Pinhas Lavon, former Defense Minister of any guilt in the 1954 security mishap, was postponed at the last minute for Sunday.

The postponement was made necessary by the failure of a special committee of Cabinet members to work out a compromise formula for modifications in the statement by the Prime Minister rejecting the findings of the Ministerial Committee which cleared Mr. Lavon. The Prime Minister’s statement charged that the Ministerial Committee’s findings represented a “miscarriage of justice, half-truths and bias.”

Caucuses of the parties which are members of the Prime Minister’s coalition government decided yesterday that either the Prime Minister had to retract these charges, which they agreed was tantamount to a statement of non-confidence in his own Cabinet Ministers, or that the Cabinet would have to resign. The Prime Minister has threatened to resign if the Cabinet refused to reverse itself on a vote of approval for the Ministerial Committee clearance of Mr. Lavon.

After the Prime Minister had indicated that he was willing to make it clear that his statement was not intended to be a reflection on the integrity of the Cabinet Ministers, the special committee of Ministers worked until late last night trying to work out a retraction formula acceptable to both the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Ministers. This was to have been submitted at the Cabinet meeting convened for today for the special purpose of ending the dispute on that basis.

It developed, however, that the Prime Minister was willing to retract the charge of bias but not those of a “miscarriage of Justice” and “half-truths.” His stand proved unacceptable to many Minister Cabinet Ministers,particularly to Justice Minister Pinhas Roser, who headed the Ministerial Committee. Under the circumstances, the Justice Minister reportedly said, he would have to comply with the decision of his Progressive party to submit a proposal that the entire Cabinet resign.

Because other coalition party leaders took a similar stand, it was decided at the last minute to postpone the Cabinet meeting and thus avoid forcing the issue of resignation and at the same time provide additional time to try to persuade the Prime Minister to agree to a full retraction of his criticism of the Ministerial Committee and its findings.