An extraordinary meeting of the Israel Cabinet bat been scheduled for Friday morning at which time Premier David Ben Gurion will formally announce the resignation of the Cabinet. He will then proceed to the office of President Ben Zvi to inform him officially of the resignation, and will thereupon be invited to form a new cabinet in which the General Zionists will join.
Meanwhile, negotiations with the Labor Mizrachi and the Mizrachi parties to remain in the Cabinet continue. Representatives of the Mapai and General Zionists agreed today to make a joint approach to the minor parties in an attempt to keep them in the Cabinet, despite their opposition to various points of the agreement on which the new broad coalition will be based.
While Mapai representatives were discussing these matters with Orthodox Laborites, Premier Ben Gurion was meeting with Minister Mordecai Nurok and Rabbis Rosenberg, Mizrachi leaders, over Rabbi Nurok’s remaining in the Cabinet. The Premier said that if the Poale Mizrachi will agree to allocate one of its posts to the Mizrachi, the Premier will also agree. He refused to create an additional Cabinet post to keep Rabbi Nurok in the government, asserting that in such an event he would have to create another post for the Poale Augusts who have the same Parliamentary strength as the Mizrachi.
MIZRACHI LABORITES DECIDE NOT TO ENTER NEW CABINET
In Tel Aviv tonight, the executive committee of the Labor Mizrachi Party decided unanimously to turn down the invitation to enter the new government. It adopted a resolution stating that “this executive favors broadening the government coalition, but the conditions and terms of the Mapai-General Zionist agreement prevents the Hapoel Hamizrachi from entering the coalition.”
The Mizrachi Laborite leaders who reported to the executive on the negotiations between the two major parties and the Orthodox group stressed the “danger” to religious education contained in the projected educational reform legislation pledged by the Mapai and the General Zionist Parties, The Premier has invited Poale Mizrachi leaders to confer with him on joining the government, despite the position of the Orthodox executive. The meeting will take place tomorrow morning.
It was learned today that beside the written agreement between the Mapai and the General Zionists, the representatives of both parties came to an oral agreement on the following matters: nomination of Deputy Ministers; participation of the centrists in the machinery handling the German reparations payments; placing of the civil service system on a solid, non-political basis; administrative reorganization of the Knesset; and the formation of a Cabinet Committee to set economic and monetary policy.
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