The La’am faction voted 18-13 this week to remain within Likud, but at the cost of a split within its own ranks. Bitter opponents of the peace treaty with Egypt, headed by MK Moshe Shamir, announced that they would seek to form a new political party composed of elements opposed to Premier Menachem Begin’s peace policies.
Shamir, a former Labor Party member, joined Likud because of its platform urging a Greater Israel. He announced after the vote that he would proclaim himself a one-man Knesset faction and try to rally others who hold similar views to join him. He denounced the peace pact signed by Begin and President Anwar Sadat in Washington as a “terrible agreement that would lead only to catastrophe,” He also attacked Begin as “a figure of red carpets, bugles and embraces, not a leader.”
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