The central committee of the National Religious Party voted by a 60-40 percent majority today to accept Premier Yitzhak Rabin’s invitation to join his coalition government. Rabin will make a formal statement in the Knesset introducing the NRP ministers who are expected to take their seats in the Cabinet early next week.
Meanwhile, formal contacts between Rabin and his coalition partners, Mapam, the Independent Liberals and the Civil Rights Party, are to resume over the weekend. Political analysts expect all of them to remain in the government. including the CRP. despite assertions by its leader, Shulamit Aloni, that she might withdraw if the NRP joins the government.
The NRP leadership of Yosef Burg and Yitzhak Raphael scored a substantial victory in today’s party vote. But leaders of the militant “young guard” who were vehemently opposed to joining the Rabin government, expressed satisfaction that their views were supported by 40 percent of the central committee’s membership although their faction controls only 20 percent of the seats on that body. Former Minister Zerach Warhaftig’s small “center faction” joined the “young guard” in the secret ballot and there were some defections from the majority Lamifne and Likud Utmure factions as well.
ROLE OF MILITANTS WILL CONTINUE
Political circles believe that the opposition of the militants within the NRP will not necessarily be eliminated, even if “young guard” MK Zevulun Hammer is persuaded to accept one of the four Cabinet portfolios Rabin is expected to offer the NRP.
While it was the “young guardists” like Hammer and Yehuda Ben Meir who organized the so-called Emunim-bloc which launched large-scale settlement attempts on the West Bank in defiance of the government, it is the Emunim zealots who now dominate the “young guard.” Hammer is not likely to accept government guidelines on the emotional settlement issue and risk alienating his strongest supporters, political sources said.
Nevertheless, the NRP vote was welcomed by Rabin whose narrowly based coalition will henceforth control 71 Knesset seats instead of 61. While a majority of 11 will be more comfortable than Rabin’s present parliamentary majority of one, few political pundits would venture to give the Labor-led government a long life expectancy.
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