Word: herut
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...confronted by the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Only last month the opposition Labor Party forced Shamir to schedule early elections for July 23. Soon afterward, it became apparent that Deputy Prime Minister David Levy, a popular Sephardi who was defeated by Shamir for the leadership of their Herut Party last September, still harbored designs on that position. Shamir was, in a sense, saved only by the bell: just three hours before Levy was widely expected to make formal his challenge on national TV, he received a pointed phone call. "I don't think a contest would...
...self-proclaimed "emperor" of the Central African Republic, Bokassa, had the strong support of Shuman Gonen, an Israeli general and respected member of Israel's Herut party. Gonen reportedly tried to build up international support for the "emperor," whose bloody regime was eventually toppled. In Malawi, Israelis reportedly may even be training government squads that practice torture. (11) And news stories about the recent visits of Israeli defense officials to Zaire to set up arms and training arrangements often did not mention that Zaire's dictator, General Mobutu, is considered by some to be one of the most ruthless...
...coalition had not been easy to forge. Although the Herut Party had nominated Shamir to succeed Begin as its leader on Sept. 2, it took Shamir nearly three weeks of wrangling to win the support of the small parties whose backing had been essential to Begin. As the haggling went on, the economic crisis deepened. The Bank of Israel announced that the country's foreign debt had increased by $550 million, to $21.5 billion, in the first six months of 1983 and that foreign currency reserves had dropped for the third straight month to a mere $230 million...
Having carried the day within the Herut, Shamir still had to convince the President that he could command a majority of the 120-member parliament. For this he needed to present a list of at least 61 parliamentary supporters. At first, representatives of the smaller parties that had supported Begin refused to commit themselves. The TAMI Party, which represents North African Jews, threatened to break ranks over budget cuts that, its members claim, have taken too much from the poor. Six other deputies demanded a "national unity" government that would include ministers drawn from the Labor Party...
When Jewish Nationalist Avraham Stern formed an even more bellicose splinter group, the Lohamei Herut Israel (Israel Freedom Fighters) in 1940, Shamir promptly enlisted and began acting on Stern's assumption that Zionism's principal foe was not Germany but Britain. He soon became a leader of the notorious, sometimes ruthless "Stern Gang," which in 1944 assassinated the British resident minister in Cairo, and is believed to have committed the 1948 murder of Swedish U.N. Mediator Folke Bernadotte. Twice Shamir was imprisoned by the British, and twice he escaped. In 1941 he stole out of detention, grew...