The Labor Party is trying disparately to prevent the defection from its ranks of a powerful and influential group of Histadrut industrialists–many of them high-ranking reserve officers–which seems about to join forces with Prof. Yigal Yadin’s new Democratic Movement for Change. The group, known as the Histadrut Economic Network, is headed by Gen. (res) Meir Amit, for nearly ten years the director general of Koor Industries, the giant Histadrut conglomerate.
Other members include Res. Gens. Tzvi Zamir, former head of the army security services and presently director general of the Haifa oil refineries; Abraham Botzer, former commander of the Navy and now director general of the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline company; Col. Iska Shadmi, a combat veteran who is director of a Koor subsidiary; and Itzhak Raviv, acting director of the Israel Ports Authority. Another member of the group is David Golomb, a prominent economist employed by Koor.
COULD BE FATAL BLOW
Their departure from the Labor Party before the May 17 elections could constitute a fatal blow and this is recognized by both Premier Yitzhak Rabin and Defense Minister Shimon Peres, now locked in a bitter struggle for the party’s leadership.
Both men met separately with Amit over the weekend in an effort to convince him to remain with Labor. Both reportedly offered Amit a ministerial portfolio in the next government but Amit is said to have rejected the offer. Finance Minister Yehoshua Rabinowitz met with both Amit and Golomb but failed to persuade them not to defect.
Amit and his associates have been conferring for weeks with leaders of Yadin’s movement and appear to be convinced that the Labor Party, as it is presently constituted, cannot effect the internal reforms that Israel urgently needs. According to some sources, a final decision to join Yadin was taken at a meeting of the Amit group last night. Golomb confirmed this but said some members still had reservations because the decision to break with Labor after many years of association was hard to make.
Yadin, apparently apprised of the decision, jubilantly told a Haifa audience last night that an announcement of far-reaching consequences would be made later this week. Amit has said that if he enters politics he would resign from Koor. But even without that post, the loss of his influence and prestige to Labor would be a severe blow.
HERLITZ TENDING TOWARD PERES
Meanwhile, another Labor Party leader, former Ambassador Esther Herlitz, announced that she intended to support Peres over Rabin for the party leadership. In a letter to Rabinowitz who heads the pro-Rabin forces in the party, she described herself as a disciple of David Ben Gurion, Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir, the leaders of Labor’s former Mapai wing. Heriltz was apparently piqued that she was not invited to a meeting of Mapai stalwarts at Rabinowitz’s home recently.
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