President Chaim Weizmann today summoned leaders of the Mapai Party, the Mapam and the Religious Bloo, to meet him in consultations Sunday to discuss a solution of the government crisis following the resignation yesterday of the Ben Gurion coalition cabinet.
Leaders of the Herut, General Zionists, Progressives, Sephardi and Communists were summoned to meetings with the President on Monday afternoon.
If Dr. Weizmann is unable to secure speedy agreement on a new government commending a Knesset majority, it is expected that Premier David Ben Gurion will go before the Knesset next week and ask for general elections.
It was reported today in circles close to Mr. Ben Gurion that he would refuse the task of forming a new government and it appeared doubtful that in the event of his refusal any other member of his party, the largest in the present Parliament, would assume the task.
The General Zionists, the centrist group which scored sensational advances in the municipal elections recently, has decided not to participate in an interim government, it was learned today, and will press for early elections.
Meanwhile, the Ben Gurion cabinet is continuing to function as a “caretaker” regime. It held its regular meeting today at which the government crisis was discussed and decisions taken on several current problems.
SPEED ACTION ON NEW ELECTION LAW
The Ministry of Justice today began speeding up preparation of an election law in anticipation that elections will be called for. Mapai leaders told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that they would not agree to a clause in the law under which the Minister of the Interior would conduct the elections. (The present Minister of the Interior is Moshe Shapira, a member of the Religious Bloc which voted against the government on the resolution which brought about the government’s resignation.)
They will press, they said, that the Minister of Justice be entrusted with the conduct of the elections. (The present Minister of Justice is Pinohas R##, a Progressive).
While the morning newspapers here generally are in favor of holding elections, the evening newspapers headed by Maariv, an independent, oppose them. Naariv warned today that elections “would be a calamity for the State in the face of the internal political and economic situation as well as the international tension.” It advocated renewal of the old coalition.
A Mapai leader today bitterly blamed the Religious Bloc for precipitating the crisis and charged that it had done so for internal political reasons. He charged that the Religious Bloc had acted out of fear of losing a monopoly on education in Israel.
Rabbi I.M. Levin, spokesman for the Religious Bloc, charged the Labor Party with responsibility for breaking its agreement with the Religious Bloc on education in the immigrant camps. He asserted that despite the agreement, thousands of children of religious families had been compelled to receive secular education. He asserted that the bloc would continue to “fight for the principle that religious parents were entitled to educate their children according to their will.”
Dr. Emanuel Neumann, American Zionist leader, said today that there was “no reason for alarm.” He expressed regret that the Progressive Party had not yet responded to appeals to unite with the General Zionists to form a liberal center movement.
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.
