Word: knesset
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Israel became a state, and during the war for independence served in the armed Jewish underground movement headed by Menachem Begin, who became the young American's mentor. After engineering careers in academia and industry, the bookish and brainy Arens entered politics in 1974, and was elected to the Knesset as a candidate of Begin's Likud...
...came as the loss of an anchor, the anchor that guaranteed the rightness of their attitudes toward the P.L.O. Only a whisper from the left judged the news positive. "There is nothing to fear from talking. We are strong enough to talk," said Haim Ramon, a leftist Labor Party Knesset member. The pervasive Israeli distrust of Arafat has yet to be replaced by even the hint of a grass-roots movement to change Israel's policy toward the P.L.O. Certainly no major politician was ready to consider any change in attitude. Few in Israel expressed relief, much less victory, over...
...Labor began a courtship of the religious parties. During the "night of the rabbis," one religious party leader after another took center stage to air demands. "We will keep all our options open," declared Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz, whose ultra-Orthodox SHAS Party will send six deputies to the Knesset...
That third bloc could materialize because Israel's cumbersome proportional- representation system allocates disproportionate political power to small parties -- a mere 1% of the popular vote, roughly 20,000 ballots, can yield a Knesset seat. Once again the system prevented the country from electing a strong, united government. As Gad Ya'acobi, a Laborite and Minister of Economics and Planning, noted, "We have institutionalized the tyranny of the minority." To put together a slim majority, Shamir will have to accommodate not only the four religious parties but also three extreme-right secular factions whose platforms all advocate annexing the occupied...
With neither major party anywhere close to a Knesset majority, Shamir holds the most cards in the game of coalition politics. For those who advocate a negotiated Mideast settlement, election results offer scant encouragement. -- Indian paratroopers thwart an invasion of mercenaries in the far- off Maldives. -- Sergei Khrushchev recounts the gripping tale of his father Nikita' s downfall...