The Knesset voted 57-49 yesterday to approve the entry of the ultranationalist Tehiya into Premier Menachem Begin’s coalition government. The addition of Tehiya’s three Knesset mandates gives the government a comfortable eight seat parliamentary majority. One coalition MK, Dror Seigerman of Likud’s Liberal Party wing, abstained.
Shortly afterwards, Tehiya leader Yuval Neeman, a professor of physics at Tel Aviv University, was sworn into the Cabinet as Minister of Science and Development, a newly created portfolio. Neeman, an outspoken advocate of “Greater Israel,” said he would devote himself to using science and technology to shift Israel’s population center from the crowded coastal plain to the mountainous hinterland–meaning the West Bank. Tehiya has demanded the prompt annexation of that territory.
Before he was swom in, the Justice Ministry imposed a 125,000 Shekel fine on Neeman for what it called a technical violation of Israel’s currency regulations. The public committee which investigated the violation said that contrary to regulations, Neeman held a foreign currency account in the U.S. during the years 1968-1978, when he lived most of the time in the U.S. According to the committee, the violation was technical because had Neeman asked permission for the account, it would have been granted.
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