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37 :11—
SOME STOPS ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
(Israel Sun)
Labour's Yitzhak Rabin gets offered a'fish at a Lod supermarket.
Labour shows the fla
the West Bank heavily populated by
Arabs.
He did, however, try to hint that
the Alignment was simply more
competent at things that are dear to
GUSH ETZION. — Shimon Peres
came to Efrata to show the flag' the people he was addressing. "The
Likud does things with flags and
and tell local residents that he and
ceremonies. They gave back all of
the Labour Party regard this area as
Sinai, uprooted settlements, burned
"part of the state of Israel."
Yamit — all for what (Prime Minis-
Peres repeatedly stressed• that it
ter) Shamir calls 'non-
was the Alignment that had decided
" Now we had talks
to build Efrata in 1976, and that the
with Hussein at various times,.
Alignment was committed to the
arranged agreements on water and
Etzion Bloc, which was rebuilt after
other things, and reached a state
1967 on the ruins of Jewish settle-
where hardly any terrorist crosses
ments captured by the Jordanians in
the border. All of this was done
1948.
quietly... and without giving back an
About 30 Tehiya and Kach right-
inch."
ists bused in from Kiryat Arba tried
Answering questions about the
to mar Peres's visit with loud heck-
Alignment position on religion
ling, which at one stage degenerated
(nearly, all the men wore kippot),
into a violent scuffle. Peres did not
Peres said that if the Alignment
seem perturbed, and Efrata leaders
forms the next coalition it would
later apologized profusely for what
wish to include religious parties. But
they called "that imported ele-
here again he made no promises.
ment... .
"It's important that you know and
. The eager representatives of some
people in other parts of Israel know
of these streams had apparently
that we regard Gush Etzion as part
come to Efrata to make Peres's visit
of the state of Israel," Peres told
a failure. Kach and extreme Tehiya
residents of Efrata town invited to a
activists gathered at the entrance to
meeting-with the Labour leader in
Efrata bearing banners and listening
the Shevut 'brad yeshiva.
to Kach's Yossi Dayan, who was
driving around the area talking in
Peres seemed to make a good
impression on the Efrata settlers,' near obscenities through a louds-
peaker mounted on a rented car.
even though many said they pro-
foundly disagreed with him and
When Peres drove into the bud-
would not vote Alignment. Most of
ding town, they massed around his
the questions were serious, and
car screaming insults. He did a quick
there appeared to be a genuine dia-
drive around Efrata and then
logue between people of differing
approached the exit on his way to
views.
Alon Shvut. There his car was stop-
ped by the demonstrators and there
But he did not make any conces-
was a brief scuffle with the security
sions on other subjects that bothered
personnel who surrounded the
the local people — mostly the fate of
other settlements built in .areas of
Volvo.
Michael Eilan
.
'
Adel Sharon of the Likud gets a soft drink during an electioneering outing.
HADAR YOSEF is a neighbour-
hood on the wrong side of the tracks
where people live in two-storey
houses of tiny flats and tiny gardens.
barely two kilometres from
Afeka, a plush villa neighbourhood.
That is north Tel Aviv at its richest
and poorest and that is where Herut
Finance Minister Yigal Cohen-
Orgad spent a night explaining the
Likud's economic policies.
At the time set for his arrival,
there were only five people in the
Hadar Yosef offices.
In the next hour and a half, people
from the neighbourhood arrived,
one by one and in couples.
"What are we going to do if he
doesn't show up?" someone asked.
"And what are they going to ask
him? What can we ask him?" asked
the same worrier in a high-pitched
voice.
"About inflation, I guess."
"No. That could • be embarras-
sing."
After an hour of waiting, most of
the people in the room begin drifting
outside. Many of the men were in
their work clothes; there were also
pensioners in shorts and golf caps.
Only the women seemed to have
thought of dressing up to meet a
minister.
The minister's Volvo appeared,
at 8.40. Suddenly the room filled up.
Cohen-Orgad began to speak.
"We've got to drag the Align-
ment into debate. They don't want
to debate. All they are doing is being
foggy and spreading lies. I'm glad to
see new faces here, to tell them, too,
that you've got to drag the Align-
ment into debate because they are
sprpading lies and half-truths, about
the economy, about their policies,
and about us."
He spoke for almost an hour. He
rambled on, from economics to
Judea and Samaria, to memories of
his days as commander of the party
,
Likud: coping with
the economic issue
Robert Rosenberg
branch, to complicated comparative
statistics about drops in the import
rates, to rollovers in the savings rates.
It was evident that in Hadar Yosef
he felt he had to be didactic and
Preach. His voice rose into shouts
and fell into whisper for dramatic
effect. "The choice is yours," his
voice rose, "to vote for Yitzhak
Shamir or..." and here the voice fell,
"Shimon Peres."
No applause. None. There had
been some applause when he came
in. When he left at 10, an hour
behind schedule, he got the same
smattering of applause. But before
leaving, he answered questions.
The questions were specific. They
were about pension accounts and
savings accounts, about anxiety and
fear. One man who turned his ques-
tion into a speech about how "we
never had it so good," was shouted
down. The people wanted to know
what was going to happen to their
money. _
He took one more question and
suddenly switched to talking about
Shimon Peres wanting the children
of Petah Tikva and Kfar Saba to live
in shelters.
It took less than two minutes,'
including a stop at a traffic light, to
get to Afeka, across the Tel Aviv-
Haifa railroad tracks. This is a neigh-
bourhood of single-family homes
and gardens, with a lot of green and
very little dust. •
"Half the people left, waiting for
you," whispered the host. He shrug-
ged. •
In Hadar Yosef he felt he had to
make a speeh attacking the Align-
ment; in Afeka, there was no
speech.
"Ask your questions. I'm sure
there are some industrialists among
you. Suppliers of the defence minis-
try. ,Ask your questions," said the
minister.
One man wanted to knbw about
the quality of life; he referred to
bureaucracies that insist on sending
bills for employees long after the
employees have left a firm. That
question got a knowing laugh from
the audience. Another asked about
national priorities. Yet another
asked about a services-
manufacturing ratio in the work
force.
There were questions from business-
men, from manufacturers, from men
and their coiffed wives who can't— or
at least think they can't — be taken in
by rhetoric.
Cohen-Orgad wiped his brow,
took a sip of coffee and then of
Coca-Cola, and began talking.
He didn't raise his voice — or at
least not as often as he did in Hadar
Yosef. But in Afeka, he wasn't so in-
terested in hitting the Alignment as
in stroking the Likud.
"Of course," he told me on his
way out, "I had to repeat many of
the same things. But you see how I
did it in different terms."
Yes, indeed. He didn't use the
phrase "half truths and lies," though
•