Special Analysis a Dramatic Cabinet Meeting

Behind the drama of last night’s Cabinet meeting where Premier Menachem Begin allowed himself to be persuaded not to resign following the Knesset’s 58-58 tie vote on a no-confidence motion, lay a political reality which, it seemed, Begin and his aides failed to predict.

In bald terms, this was the threatened rebelion of the three small coalition parties — the National Religious Party, Aguda Israel and Tami. Begin had said before the Knesset vote took place that he would resign if there was a tie vote because it would deprive his coalition government of its moral mondate. Immediately after the vote the Premier called an emergency session of the Cabine to tender his resignation, but the Cabinet rejected his move by a vote of 12-6.

While Begin and other Likud leaders seemed to think that the Premier’s resignation, and the automatic fall of the government, would trigger new elections later this year, the coalition partners plainly did not share this prognosis. Nor did they share Likud’s interest in early elections, and they made that exceedingly clear to Begin during that late-night extraordinary Cabinet session.

VEILED WARNINGS BY CABINET MEMBERS

Yosef Burg, the veteran NRP leader, indicated that if Begin implemented his threat to resign because of the tied vote, when there was no constitional necessity for him to do so, the NRP would be “open” to other ways of staving off early elections. This meant, of course, forming an alternative coalition with Labor.

Avraham Shapiro, the Aguda Knesset leader, gave similar hints. When Begin noted that the NRP and Aguda had pledged before the 1981 election not to align with Labor against Likud, Shapiro remarked pointedly that he “wouldn’t build on such promises.”

Aharon Abu-Hatzeira, leader of the three man Tami Party, spoke strongly against Begin resigning at this time. He said it was the Premier’s historic national responsibility to carry through the Sinai withdrawal and stabilize relations with Egypt in the subsequent period.

Between the lines, Cabinet insiders read a readiness on Abu-Hatzeira’s part, too, to switch his allegiance to Labor in order to set up an alternative government and avoid early elections.

FACING A NEW POLITICAL REALITY

Likud ministers found themselves looking into a chasm: Defeat and opposition stared back at them. Begin, apparently sensing the new political reality shaping up, indicated that he would {SPAN}##{/SPAN} all allow himself to be persuaded by a majority of the Cabinet not to resign.

A Cabinet source said later that had Begin remained adamant and gone to the President, “a government under Shimon Peres would have been functioning within a week.”

The source reasoned that Labor would simply give the same undertakings and pledges to the religious parties as Begin had signed last year, justifying this to its constituency by the overriding need to remove Begin and set up an alternative government.

TOUGH TESTS AHEAD

But, although the immediate resignation threat is now removed, the government still faces tough tests in the days and weeks ahead. Today there are two budget votes in the Knesset, and Rabbi Haim Druckman, the NRP MK who was responsible for last night’s tied vote, said this morning he would again vote with the opposition. (See separate story P. 3.)

But the government Knesset floor managers were saying today that if the coalition can just hold on until after the Sinai pull-out, its position could be improved.

After the withdrawal has become a fail accompli, they calculate, Druckman will return to the coalition fold, and possibly even Tehiya will be prepared to cooperate with the government against the centrist-leftist Knesset oppositions instead of teaming up with the opposition as it did last night.

But there were other voices within the coalition predicting elections by the fall or at the latest by next spring. These people seemed to feel that last night’s drama shook the political situation so violently that a return to the status quo was unlikely.