Word: knesset
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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From its position stop a hill in western Jerusalem, the Israeli Knesset overlooks most of the new city. It is a rectangular stone building whose austere lines and sharp angles mold a basically classical exterior. Inside, the Israeli government meets to make decisions that will determine its country's future...
...Knesset combines the rough-hewn and informal with the grandiose. The legislative chamber, in which the 120 Knesset members most four days a week, contains simple beige swivel chairs arranged in concentric half-circles behind long curved desks. The ceiling is high and majestic, but the wall is carved in an abstract relief symbolizing peace; an incomplete circle represents the city of Jerusalem which was still split by barbed wire when this new seat of government was constructed...
...Knesset members reflect the informality if their surrounding. No more than three of the men wear ties; most are in open collar shirts and sport jackets. They lean back in their chairs or wander around the chamber, talking loudly with their neighbors while the Israeli defense minister tries to address them from the podium...
...Will all of you please sit down and be quiet," orders the Speaker of the Knesset, a short, round-faced man with a halo of gray, bushy hair adoring an otherwise bald head. "Have a little respect...
From the start, Rabin had tried to widen his political base hi the Knesset. By the end of October, he was able to win over the National Religious Party -without compromising any of the principles of the government platform that the Religious Party had rejected last spring. This gave Rabin a somewhat more comfortable margin of eight seats in the Knesset and strengthened him enough to announce the stern measures of the economic "shock treatment" by which he hopes to resuscitate the Israeli economy (TIME, Nov. 25). Whether it also strengthened him sufficiently to be able to make any significant...