Premier Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan were scheduled to meet today to discuss a threatened split in the ranks of the Israel Labor Party formed less than a year ago. Gen. Dayan is the leader of the Rafi faction which only last year joined with Mrs. Meir’s Mapai Party and the Achdut Avodah to form a united Labor Party.
Rafi elements have grown restive in recent months. They have expressed dissatisfaction with the party’s preparations for next fall’s national elections and have voiced a number of demands, including adoption of Gen. Dayan’s plans for the occupied territories. The Defense Minister has proposed the economic integration of the Arab territories with Israel, among other things. Mrs. Meir and former Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir, secretary-general of the Labor Party, oppose Dayan’s plans.
Only yesterday, Mrs. Meir delivered an emotional speech against integration in the Knesset. She declared, “I want a Jewish State with a decisive Jewish majority which cannot change overnight. This is plain Zionism in which I have always believed.” She spoke in reply to a motion by Shmuel Tamir, of the opposition Free Center faction, who asked for a debate on the integration issue. The Premier said she did not want a situation in which more Arab workers entered Israel and Israelis stook idly by while others did their work for them.
Gen. Dayan called today for the establishment of civilian Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and the creation there of an atmosphere of co-existence with the Arab population with emphasis on its economic integration with Israel and improved living standards. He addressed a convention of the moshavim (small-holders) movement here. He also said Arab forces were staging a general build-up along all the cease-fire lines and declared that Israel’s ground and air forces were ready for any eventuality. He said that if the escalation of military activity along the borders continued, he would ask the Government for authority to call up the reserves twice a year instead of once as heretofore.
Speaking about the occupied territories, he stressed that Jewish settlements should be civilian, permanent, and located in places that have an historic affinity with Israel without dispossessing the local Arabs.
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