Ao,
And Who Cares?
Body language: Prime Minister Shamir (left) and Labor Party
Leader Rabin, in a rare moment together during the campaign,
attend a memorial service for Menachem Begin.
approac as come un-
. point. ut t person
der fire within Labor cirdes, especially by former par-
ty head Shimon Peres. "Even Ben Gurion never did
such a thing," he huffed.
More significantly, the 70-year-old Mr. Rabin has
thus far failed to excite the electorate. His rallies have
been lightly attended (although there has been little
of the rowdy heckling that marred Mr. Peres' cam-
paign appearances in e past) and on TV he has been
predictable and low-key.
Mr. Rabin has promised to freeze "political settle-
ments" in the West Bank and Gaza and divert mon-
ey used for building them to immigrant absorption;
and he has pledged to put the fight against unem-
ployment at the top of his political agenda. But these
are long-time Labor positions, and thus far they have
attracted little attention. Mr. Rabin has offered few
specific ideas about how he would tackle the country's
major domestic issues, or move the peace process for-
ward.
Trailing in the polls, the Likud has been on the at-
tack. In the first weeks of the campaign it concentrated
its fire on Mr. Rabin's alleged character flaws. Young
party activists passed out paper cups that said, "Bet-
ter to have a sober prime minister than a drunk one,"
and harassed Mr. Rabin with chants of "go home, have
a cognac and go to sleep" — references to a longtime
rumor (which he denies) that the Labor candidate has
a drinking problem.
The Likud has also resurrected the illegal Ameri-
can bank account held by Mrs. Rabin, which forced
her husband to resign his post as head of the party in
1977. And it has especially concentrated on the brief
breakdown suffered by Mr. Rabin as army chief of staff
on the eve of the 1967 Six Day War. A special Likud
telephone hot-line provides Mr. Rabin's own account
of the incident to the musical accompaniment of the
theme song from "Superman."
In recent days, the personal attacks have abated,
apparently because they seem to be having little im-
pact. A number of Likud leaders, including Foreign
Minister David Levy and Benyamin Netanyahu, are
also known to be uncomfortable with this strategy.
"It's pretty hard for the Likud to argue that Rabin is
an unstable drunk, considering that he was Shamir's
Defense Minister for four years," conceded one Likud
insider.
Going into the last leg of the campaign, the Likud
is now focusing on accusations that Mr. Rabin is re-
ally a front for a dovish coalition. It's slogan is: "The
Likud against the entire left wing" and it has charged
that a Rabin-led government would make territorial
concessions leading to a Palestinian state. Mr. Ra-
bin himself denies this, however, and Labor has re-
sponded by stepping up an ad campaign that portrays
Mr. Rabin as a defense expert and the party as cen-
trist, "Neither the extreme of the left nor the right."
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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