Aryeh Eliav, the Knesset member who three years ago obtained the secretary generalship of the Labor Party by asking for it–a most unusual move in Israel–said yesterday that he was prepared to assume a Cabinet post in the next government, to be elected next year.
Eliav, regarded as a dove on the Middle East conflict, threw his kipa into the ring with publication of his new book “Eretz Hatzi” (“Land of the Deer”), which he called his campaign platform. In it, he maintains that peace depends on Israeli cooperation in the establishment of a Palestinian Arab State in most of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Regarding Jewish settlement in the administered areas, Eliav believes that when peace comes there must be mutual movement of Jews and Arabs between Israel and the Palestinian-Jordanian State.
The evening newspaper Maariv criticized Eliav today for nominating himself. “Nobody knows what government is to come and what parties will compose it,” Maariv said, “but Eliav already knows he is a minister in the future Cabinet.”
Eliav, 50, was born in Moscow and came to Israel at the age of 3. A member of the Haganah in the 1930s, he was a Lt. Col. in the 1948 war and became a Hebrew University professor in 1957. He has served as first secretary of the Israeli Embassy in Moscow, Deputy Minister of Commerce and Industry and Deputy Minister of Immigration and Absorption.
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.
