Labor Gains First Knesset Majority in Israel’s History As Alignment Covenant Signed

The new political alignment between Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s Israel Labor Party and the left-wing labor party, Mapam, was hailed by Mr. Eshkol and other party leaders at a celebration following the signing of a formal protocol between the two factions here yesterday. The alignment gives Labor an absolute majority in the Knesset (Parliament) for the first time in Israel’s history. But the ink had not dried on the document when differences appeared between the new partners and within the ranks of each.

The Israel Labor Party, which is middle-of-the-road Socialist, was created early in 1968 by the merger of Mapai, Achdut Avodah and Rafi. Rafi adherents, led by Shimon Peres, deputy secretary general of the Labor Party, refused to sign the alignment covenant on grounds that it was contrary in spirit and wording to the Labor Party’s own founding document. They objected specifically to Mapam’s representation of six seats on the alignment’s 15-member executive board which they considered excessive in view of the fact that the Labor Party holds 55 Knesset seats to Mapam’s nine.

Mapam’s secretary-general, Meir Yaari, did not attend the alignment festivities because of ill health. But the veteran politician dashed some cold water on the proceedings with a message warning that “We promise no idyl” inside the new partnership. Mr. Yaari said, “We will continue our struggle for a just balance between capital and labor and will not tolerate a wage freeze when capitalists are making 30 percent profit.” Another view was taken by Pinhas Sapir, secretary-general of the Labor Party, Minister-Without-Portfolio in the Cabinet and former Finance Minister. He asserted that the alignment will not be just a “technical edifice” but a “close partnership” between “the most constructive forces” in Israel. Mr. Sapir promised that the alignment would strive for a society based on cooperation, equality, pioneering and military strength. “Yacov Hazan, a Mapam member of the Knesset, said that the June, 1967 Six-Day War was mainly responsible for bringing his party into alignment with its former rivals because “it shattered old concepts and made previous divisions meaningless.” Mr. Peres declared however that fundamental differences remained between Labor and Mapam despite the alignment. “On the national level we believe in the need to maintain separate Jewish and Arab parties (Mapam and its Arab affiliates have always appeared on a common election list) and in the social sphere we do not think we are still engaged in a class struggle but that we are in a state of transition from a working class to a working nation,” Mr. Peres declared. Minister of Transport, Moshe Carmel, a leader of the Achdut Avodah faction, urged expanded Israeli settlement in the occupied Arab territories

The independent newspaper Haaretz, commenting on the alignment today, said that despite its parliamentary majority, Labor still speaks in terms of coalition governments which means it will not exercise its power to combat clerical influences. The paper referred to the National Religious Party which, though representing a minority of the electorate, has always held the balance of power in coalition governments. Representatives of the religious bloc were conspicuously absent from yesterday’s festivities which were attended by President Zalman Shazar and leaders of other parties. Also absent were members of Gahal, the alignment of the right-wing Herut and the Liberal Party, and former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who has had differences with Mr. Eshkol.