The Labor Party leadership has begun lobbying to amass the largest possible vote for its presidential candidate, Prof. Ephraim Katchalski, when the Knesset convenes April 10 to select a successor to President Zalman Shazar. The Labor Party’s Central Committee nominated the 57-year-old Weizmann Institute biophysicist Thursday but his margin of 56-44 percent over his principal rival, Deputy Knesset Speaker Yitzhak Navon, was disappointing to the Party leaders who backed him.
Bitterness has already been expressed by Navon and his supporters over the methods employed by the Party leadership to promote Katchalski’s candidacy. The National Religious Party and Gahal are reportedly weighing the possibility of nominating candidates of their own.
Dr. Katchalski, who is currently visiting the United States, is expected to return to Israel this week. It was learned today that Israeli security agents have been assigned to safeguard Prof. Katchalski while he is abroad.
Navon, who is a leader of the Sephardic community, hinted on a radio interview yesterday that there may have been anti-Sephardic bias on the part of the Labor Party leaders who had worked to defeat him. He said he would “weigh very carefully whether and how to come out publicly about some of the ugly methods used by the Party machine.” Other circles, however, discounted bias and said the opposition to Navon stemmed from his association with the Labor Party’s Rafi wing. The powerful Party leaders who had opposed him, including Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir and Minister-Without-Portfolio Israel Galili, belong to the Mapai faction which is also the faction of Premier Golda Meir. Navon’s bitterness was directed toward the Party, not toward its choice. He remarked, following the Central Committee vote, “If out of a desire to defeat my candidacy we got Ephraim Katchalski, it was worth it.”
The National Religious Party indicated today that it-would decide whether or not to support Katchalski after ascertaining his position on religion and whether he would adhere to Jewish law and traditions while in office. Gahal leaders told reporters that the faction had not yet decided whether to support Katchalski or nominate its own candidate. Gahal had been prepared to back Navon.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
