Friday, March 30, 1984
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Can Labor regain control?
METROPOLITAN DETROIT B'NAI B'RITH
MEN'S AND WOMEN'S COUNCILS
Continued from Page 1
Hatzeira's native Morocco.
Some newspapers claimed
that he was acting on in-
structions from his patron,
Nissim Gaon, a Geneva-
based multi-millionaire
leader of Sephardic Jewry
world-wide.
Tami is also said to want
to go to the polls while the
National Religious Party is
in a state of disarray.
The focus now is on a date
for the new elections and
potential candidates for the
top spot. Two former
defense ministers, the
popular Ezer Weizman and
the controversial Ariel
Sharon, are planning to
mount a challenge and
former president Yitzhak
Navon is considering a
similar move. Within Likud,
there is a distinct possibili-
ty that Deputy Prime
Minister David Levy may
challenge Sharnir for the top
spot on the party list.
Likud has sought to delay
the elections for as long as
possible, hoping the
economy would stabilize.
Labor favored early elec-
tions to capitalize on the
growing dissent among the
electorate over the two ma-
jor issues: the economy and
In Cooperation With The JEWISH NATIONAL FUND!
INVITE YOU TO ATTEND A
CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST
HONORING
ALEXANDER T. ORNSTEIN, President - Men's Council
BOBBIE LEVINE, President - Women's Council
Along With The Lodge, Chapter
and Unit Presidents
on
SUN., APRIL 1, 1984 - 10:00 A.M.
at
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Chairperson
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Southfield, Michigan
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Chairperson
CO-CHAIRMEN OF THE EVENT ARE:
CHARLES FINK, TED FRAZIS, LOUIS KAY AND HARRY MICHELSON
Kosher wine
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just special
Ezer Weizman
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26
troop withdrawal from
Lebanon. By mid-week,
though, the position of the
two major parties seemed to
have moved towards con-
sensus for early elections.
Almost no one wants to
be subjected to the tension,
the emotional drain and the
massive expenditures of
public funds generated by a
prolonged campaign.
"A long campaign will
hurt the country because of
its impact on economic
measures and because of the
increased expenditures of
the campaign itself," said
Knesset member Gad
Yaacobi, Labor's spokes-
man on economic matters
and probable choice for
finance minister in a Labor-
led government.
Present finance Minister
Yigal Cohen-Orgad has em-
phatically stated that there
will be no "election
economics" practiced in the
forthcoming campaign. In
1981, then-Finance Minister
Yoram Aridor helped win
the election for Likud by in-
troducing massive tax cuts
on expensive imported
goods, thus presenting
voters with an opportunity
to acquire color , television
sets, automobiles and other
high priced consumer items
at prices they couldn't
resist.
"Israel does not have
enough dollar reserve to
repeat Alidor's tricks-; -
editorialized Ha'aketz. "Let-
ting the economy loose in
the coming months could
lead to a very serious
economic collapse even
before the elections. -
Shimon Peres has so far
managed to stave off .both
the openly admitted ambi-
tions of Rabin and tacitly
understood aspirations of
former president Navon to
replace him in the number
one position on Labor's list.
Peres has carefully included
both of them in all his plans.
He called Yitzhak Navon to
come home from a lecture
tour in South America in
order to participate more
Peres so far has
managed to stave off
Rabin and Navon.
fully in election prepara-
tions, and. has represented
the three of them at the
head of the ticket as a kind
of troika of leadership, with
Rabin slated for the position
of defense minister and
Navon to be given the
cabinet post of his choice if
Labor wins.
The National Religious
Party needs all the time it
can get to set its political
house in order. Splits within
the party and competition
from other religious parties
raise serious doubts that
early elections will bring
them even the six Knesset
seats they earned in the last
election. NRP Party leader
Yosef Burg, a cabinet mem-
ber in every Israeli govern-
ment to date, was himself
caught by the Knesset vote
in the midst of setting up a
new alliance with far right
elements within the reli-
gious camp.
Tami, founded in 1981 as
a representative of the
Sephardic population, also
faces competition for its
constituency from other
parties, including a new
ultra-Orthodox Sephardic
party which did very well in
the Jerusalem municipal
elections this past fall. Also
if either David Levy or Yt-
zhak Navon, both Sephar-
dim, should head one of the
major parties, Tami will be
hard-pressed to continue
representing itself as the on-
ly defender of Sephardi
rights.
Ezek Weizman's an-
nouncement that he will
head a new, as yet unnam-
ed party, adds a new dimen-
sion to the campaign.
Although the charismatic
Weizman is tremendously
popular with Israelis, no one
I talked to was prepared to
vote for him without know-
ing who his running mate
would be and what he stood
for, other than his initial
statement that he was
against the Lebanese war.
favored extension of the
peace process and wanted a
balanced economy.
"You're
charming...
nobody is as good as you for
Yitzhak Navon
a picnic, a party, a
drink...it's a pleasure to be
in your company, - wrote
Dov Goldstein in an open
letter to Weizman publish-
ed in Maariu. "Now if you
will only talk to us serious-
ly and tell us what paths
you will take, what your
solution and suggestions
are... -
If Weizman gets his cam-
paign off the ground, he
could take votes away from
both major parties. But
Weizman's centrist posi-
tions are most likely to at-
tract voters who might
otherwise vote for the small
Shinui Party, whose two
present representatives in
the Knesset, Amon Rubens-
tein and Mordechai Vir-
shubsky, are respected by
almost everyone as among
the most competent and
clear thinking parliamen-
tarians that Israel has.
In 1981, people largely
voted for or against Mena-
chem Begin — his personali-
ty dominated the campaign.
In 1984, voters are more
likely to be influenced by
issues, according to political
analyst Hanoch Smith, with
the economy and the war in
Lebanon dominant.
Group moves
against UN •
anti-Semitism
United Nations (JTA) —
The Board of Governors of
the United Nations Asso-
ciation (UNA) has unanim-
ously adopted a resolution
which objects to anti-
Semitism at the UN, the In-
ternational Council of B'nai
B'rith reported.
In a letter to Dr. Harris
Schoenberg, director of UN
Affairs for the International
Council, Robert Ratner,
president of the UN Asso-
ciation, stated that at its
last meeting, the UNA-U.S.
Board acknowledged that
"certain attacks against Is-
rael" at the last General As-
sembly "degenerated again
into blatant a nti -
Semitism."
The association's board
added that it is "disturbed
that surprisingly few dele-
gations bothered to object."