Sons of the Founders

In an unpretentious Tel Aviv movie theater last week, Israel's dominant Labor Party gathered to complete a momentous political shift. By a close (298-254) but generally amicable vote, the party's central committee chose Labor Minister Yitzhak Rabin, 52, over Information Minister Shimon Peres, 51, to become Israel's fifth Premier. Rabin will have six weeks at most to put together a coalition government to succeed the present caretaker Cabinet of Premier Golda Meir. If he fails--as some believe he will--new elections will likely be called.

Rabin's selection shattered precedent. The shy, slender, native-born son of an American father and Russian mother is the first Sabra to be named Premier-designate after a succession of Eastern European Jews, including Mrs. Meir, who arrived in Palestine in the first waves of immigration. He is the youngest Premier-designate; almost the age of the state of Israel itself (26 years) separates him from 76-year-old Mrs. Meir. He is also the first nonpolitician to hold the job. He made his reputation first as armed forces Chief of Staff and the architect of Israel's smashing six-day victory over the Arabs in the 1967 war, then as Israeli ambassador to Washington from 1968 to 1973.

In the maneuvering that preceded the vote, Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir, the party kingmaker, insisted that he wanted as Premier no ex-general and nobody outside his own Mapai faction of the party. Yet when the vote was taken, Sapir was among Rabin's principal supporters simply because he realized that ex-General, non-Mapaist Rabin was most likely to win. Rabin, in shirtsleeves along with Opponent Peres and other party members in the stuffy theater, accepted the nomination calmly. "The sons of the founding generation have come of age," he said. His brief acceptance speech was conciliatory to avoid irritating all of the other politicians with whom he must now deal in the laborious business of putting together a Cabinet.

Bickering Factions. The present caretaker government is a fragile coalition of Labor with the largely conservative National Religious Party, the Independent Liberal Party and Israeli Arab members of the Knesset. The alliance gave Mrs. Meir only a slim majority: 68 seats in a Parliament of 120 members. Bickering among the factions was one reason her government finally caved in. Rabin will have to use all of his generalship and his diplomatic persuasion to retain the ten Religious Party members. They differ with his moderate views on ceding some occupied territories as part of the peacemaking process; they also have a running difference with Labor on the sticky religious question of just who is a Jew and what rabbinical procedures must be followed for conversions to Judaism. Even if Rabin succeeds, another national election may have to be called this year in an effort to give Labor a clear majority without having to depend on a coalition.

In any event, the face of Israeli politics has been changed for good. Ever since the Yom Kippur War, Israelis have been disturbed by the country's costly lack of military preparedness. To many, that indicated that Labor, which has ruled Israel since independence in 1948, has become too old, too tired, too UPI faction-ridden--there are three competitive blocs within the party--to do the job any longer. Voters showed their dissatisfaction by reducing Labor from 56 seats to 51 in the December general election.

With such scant support, Mrs. Meir could not survive the damaging report issued by a special committee last month. It put blame for the prewar unpreparedness on Israel's military leaders but exonerated Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and Mrs. Meir. Yet it is significant that in choosing Rabin, the Labor Party was turning to a man who had been untainted by last year's war.* Rabin was made Labor Minister in March and had no military responsibilities during the October righting.

Rabin's selection is the beginning of a broader political transition in which familiar figures will retire from active politics. Foremost is Golda Meir, who last week in one of her final public appearances attended Memorial Day services to decorate the graves of Israel's war dead. She was accompanied by the new Chief of Staff, Lieut. General Mordechai Gur, who, like Rabin, is a Sabra. Later, in a TV interview, she indicated that she did not even want a parliamentary seat. "I want to get up in the mornings without consulting my diary. I will not be homesick for my seat in the Cabinet or the Knesset."

Moshe Dayan will almost certainly be excluded from any Rabin Cabinet because he is too controversial. So may Deputy Premier Yigal Allon, who, as commander of the Palmach, the emerging state's military striking force before 1948, gave Rabin his first command. For Rabin's fresh image, Allon has simply been around too long. Foreign Minister Abba Eban will fade too. He constantly differed with the new Premier when Rabin was ambassador to Washington, particularly in the 1972 U.S. election, when Rabin openly supported Nixon because of the President's friendship for Israel. One important holdover, on the strength of his party showing last week, will be Information Minister Peres, who may take a key portfolio, defense or the foreign ministry.

Fresh Approaches. The changes generally are acceptable to Israeli voters, particularly the younger ones who last week, to commemorate Israel's 26th Independence Day, staged a march in favor of fresh political approaches and personalities. Rabin has become the second most popular public figure after Golda Meir in polls. If he manages to win the support of his critics and form a new Cabinet, Rabin will likely drive home a message to other political groups like the hardline Likud bloc. Its leader, Onetime Underground Terrorist Menachem Begin, a militant rightist, has reached 60 and is hardly a member of the new generation. For Israel, at long last, it appears that the time has indeed come for the founders' sons.

* But who, opponents charged last week, suffered a nervous collapse at the outset of the 1967 war as a result of "acute anxiety" and emotional fatigue that make him unfit now to become Premier. Rabin, a heavy smoker, insists that the episode was a brief bout with nicotine poisoning.

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