The Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee angrily suspended all work today to protest the government’s failure to keep it abreast of the latest events Specifically, committee members of both coalition and opposition Factions were infuriated when Acting Premier Yigael Yadin refused to brief them on President Carter’s latest peace treaty proposals that the Cabinet approved by majority vote yesterday on the recommendation of Premier Menachem Begin.
Yadin appeared before the committee but only to explain why he could not disclose details of the Cabinet’s action. He contended that to do so at this time could jeopardize negotiations and promised that Begin would report to the committee directly after a special Cabinet meeting scheduled for Friday.
Committee members did not take kindly to Yadin’s reminder that the Cabinet vote did not require their approval and that in any event they could not change it. By a vote of 16-3, it decided to suspend all activities for the day and accused the government of failures to report to the Knesset. The toughly worded statement described the government’s behavior as a “disgrace to the Knesset.”
The unprecedented action by the Knesset’s most prestigious committee was motivated, observers said, by two factors the anger of opposition members over being “left out of the game” and strong reservations by hard-liners about President Carter’s new initiative. Although the Cabinet cloaked the President’s latest proposals in secrecy one committee member, Yehuda Ben Moss, chairman of the National Religious Party Knesset faction, claimed that the proposals had been leaked. He said anyone could read them in the morning newspapers.
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.
