Ideological discussions on the highest party levels were completed this week-end at a Mapai Party session at Kfar Hayarok with the adoption of resolutions stressing the need for unity within the party and urging the membership to do everything possible to safeguard and extend unity in the face of the “great tasks” ahead of the organization and the State of Israel.
Despite a spate of advance rumors, former Gen, Moshe Dayan was not named to the central secretariat of the party and the present leadership was kept. Before the resolutions were voted, the two main factions within the party–the so-called Tel Aviv Group, composed of veteran party leaders, and the younger group led by Gen. Dayan–announced their dissolution. Premier David Ben Gurion himself a Mapai leader, attended the session.
Hopes of passage of a Mapai-sponsored election reform bill which would have moved Israel’s political system in the direction of the two or three party line-up found in the United States and Britain faded today when the General Zionists announced their “compromise” plan for elector of change.
It had been hoped that General Zionists, who believe that in a two party system they would become the second major political group in the country, would throw its support to the Mapai measure and assure its squeaking through. However, instead of favoring a nationwide voting system based on fixed constituencies, as proposed by Premier David Ben Gurion and his Labor Party, the centrists proposed today that 90 seats be filled on a constituency basis and the remaining 30 be spread among the parties on a national proportional representation formula.
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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.
