Knesset Expected to Approve June 30 As the Election Vote

The Knesset is expected this week to approve June 30 as the election date. Highly placed government sources indicated today that there is general agreement within Premier Menachem Begin’s coalition on that date instead of

July 7, the date proposed in the government-initiated election bill presently before the Knesset’s Legal Committee. Although the opposition Labor Alignment is still pressing for May elections, most political pundits believe it will settle for elections at the end of June.

The Legal Committee’s recommendation of June 30 appears virtually certain after Education Minister Zevulun Hammer informed Begin that it would not interfere with schooling.

Many of Israel’s elementary and high schools serve as polling places and Begin had asked Hammer if his ministry had any objections. Hammer noted that elementary schools recess for the summer on June 30 and that high schools close on June 23–facts well known to the Premier–and that closing elementary schools a day earlier would have no impact.

Begin’s question was viewed in some political circles as a stalling tactic, inasmuch as it delayed the Legal Committee’s decision on the matter by a week. But government sources insisted that the Premier was fully committed to early elections and was not having “second thoughts.” The July 7 date was opposed by both coalition and opposition members, partly because it is the vacation season and many Israeli voters will be abroad.

ROLE OF THE NRP

There was also speculation that Hammer’s National Religious Party was anxious to post-pone elections as long as possible because the bribery trial of Religious Affairs Minister Aharon Abu-Hatzeira, who is accused of bribe-taking, will be a severe burden for the religious party to bear during a bitterly fought election campaign, even if the minister is eventually acquitted. The trial opens this week.

The NRP hoped to have as much time elapse as possible between the end of the trial and election day. It also faces possible defections. Rabbi Haim Druckman, a hawkish MK who is close to the Gush Emunim, is reported to be on the verge of leaving the party and establishing his own indpendent election list.

That threat has caused Hammer’s “young guard” faction within the party to adopt a harder political line which in turn exacerbated its tensions with the moderate Lamifneh faction headed by Interior Minister Yosef Burg. An angry debate developed over the weekend as to which faction would head the party’s election list. Hammer indicated that he would do his utmost to present a united image to the electorate.

DAYAN TO DECIDE IN APRIL

Meanwhile, former Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan has promised to decide by early April whether he will form his own political party and enter it in the elections. Since quitting Begin’s Cabinet in October, 1979, Dayan has aroused speculation as to his political future. Initially, he said he would serve out his Knesset term and retire from politics. But he appears to have changed his mind of late and some observers believe he intends to join with other former members of Begin’s Cabinet to establish a new centrist faction.

However, he told a meeting of the Engineers Club in Tel Aviv last Friday that he would offer himself as the head of a new party if he could find 10-15 other political figures who shared his views. He inisted that he would not join former Finance Minister Yigal Hurwitz’s Rafi faction which quit Begin’s coalition last month.

ELEMENTS IN DAYAN’S PROGRAM

Dayan said the main point of his political program would be unilateral implementation of the autonomy plan for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, meaning that Israel would act alone without waiting for Egypt, Jordan or the Palestinians to agree to the plan. He said he would also insist on maintaining a defense line on the highlands of the West Bank in addition to the Jordan Valley.

Dayan said the plan proposed by the late former Foreign Minister Yigal Allon for Jewish settlements in the Jordan Valley while the highlands would be turned over to the Arabs who populate them was insufficient for Israel’s security needs. Dayan, as Defense Minister in the Labor government, had supported the Allon plan.

He also rejected the Labor Party’s “Jordanian optian,” contending that it would not work and that, in any case, King Hussein showed no sign of willingness to negotiate.