The Labor Alignment was divided today over whether to make concessions to the National Religious Party to draw it into a new coalition at any price or try to form a narrow coalition with the Independent Liberal and Civil Rights parties that would provide the government with a precarious margin of only one Knesset seat.
The Alignment’s Mapai wing was reportedly ready to go “half way” toward meeting the NRP’s demands on the Who is a Jew issue which, if acceptable to the religious party, would assure a government headed by Yitzhak Rabin and the exclusion of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. But Rabin was said to be determined not to wait beyond Friday for the NRP to reverse its decision against joining a Labor-led coalition. He would presumably then go ahead with negotiations with the ILP and the CRP headed by Shulamit Aloni.
But Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir, Rabin’s chief supporter for the Premiership, warned that a government based on only 61 of the 120 Knesset seats would be “a very dangerous thing.” Other Labor leaders have expressed fear that exclusion of the NRP would force it into a coalition with Likud creating a 54-seat opposition bloc in the Knesset, the largest in Israel’s history.
Labor’s Mapai wing also reportedly harbors a distinct aversion for Ms. Aloni who bolted the party to run for the Knesset on her own–and succeeded in getting elected. Premier Golda Meir is known to dislike the outspoken Knesseter who has been a persistent critic of her policies, and does not want to see her in the Cabinet.
Whatever the Labor Alignment decides in the next few days. It will have a difficult time breaking the coalition deadlock. The NRP has said it will accept no new proposals from Labor, mainly because Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren has ruled out any compromise short of complete surrender to Orthodox demands on the Who is a Jew issue. The NRP, which defied Goren when it Joined Mrs. Meir’s government last March, is not considered likely to do so again. On the other side, both Mapam and the ILP have made it clear that they will not countenance further concessions to the religious establishment.
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