Leaders of the Mapai Party who side with David Ben-Gurion, and who are in the minority in the leadership of the party, today charged Prime Minister Levi Eshkol with seeking to impose the majority’s view on the entire party by calling for the resignation from the Cabinet of the Mapai ministers who agree with Ben-Gurion’s stand.
In a statement, they said that the traditional view of the Mapai Party was that “the representatives of Mapai in the Cabinet and the Histadrut always reflected the various viewpoints existing in the party and in its national leadership, and this was the guiding principle ever since the establishment of the State.” The statement emphasized that Mapai members must not resign from the Cabinet whenever they disagree with the Premier on issues under dispute on a party level, and must enjoy complete freedom to fight in the Cabinet for their opinions “even when they think that there should be another candidate for Premiership,”
The signatories of the statement included Mayor Abba Khoushy of Haifa; Moshe Dayan; Mayor Mordechai Surkiss of Kfar Saba; Hillel Cohen, the general manager of Solel Bonch; and a number of others. Deputy Defense Minister Shimon Peres and Development Minister Yosef Almogi, who are known to be siding with Ben-Gurion, were not among those who signed the statement.
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