Word: ben-gurion
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion went to bed early. Turning on the radio next morning at his desert cottage at Sde Boker, he heard the news at breakfast that he had won another election. Then his campaign manager helicoptered in from Tel Aviv to tell him he had won the biggest triumph of his political career...
...Israel's first general election since 1955, Ben-Gurion's Mapai (Labor) Party had not only defended its No. 1 position against 20 rival parties, but boosted its strength in the 120-member Knesset from 40 to at least 47 seats, a gain the campaign manager himself had ruled out beforehand as "impossible." "The fight of the 20 against one has ended with the complete failure of the 20," crowed Ben-Gurion. His nimbus of white hair awhirl, the old (73) warrior jubilantly raised a glass of vermouth, proclaimed his victory toast: "To life...
...assure "Oriental" (i.e., non-European) immigrants that the Mapai Party would fight to break down social divisions in Israel springing from which people arrived first in the country, Dayan, Peres and Ben-Gurion himself campaigned door to door through Tel Aviv slums. Cape Town-born Abba Eban, who had never lived in Israel before his return from the U.S. last summer, got off to an awkward start by turning up in statesman's coat and tie for a Mapai rally at which Ben-Gurion and everybody else on the platform wore open-necked shirts. As quickly as was diplomatically...
Grateful but not completely satisfied by the size of his victory, Ben-Gurion hopes to coalesce with two small center parties so that he can have an absolute majority to put through an electoral reform his heart is set upon. He would like to abolish proportional representation in favor of a U.S.-type system in which deputies would be elected from individual constituencies. The result, Ben-Gurion believes, would be to cut down the number of parties, and permit a more stable system of governing what he complains is a "nation of Prime Ministers...
...after the death of her husband in 76 B.C. Last week in Israel a third woman took over, but for the first two days not even members of the Cabinet knew it. Finally, Foreign Minister Golda Meir, 61, rose in the Cabinet to inform her colleagues that Premier David Ben-Gurion, 72, had set sail for a much-needed vacation on the Riviera, had kept his departure secret to avoid any fuss. Before he left, he had written a letter designating who should take over his duties as Premier and Minister of Defense. Israel's new boss...