Word: knesset
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Begin survives a Knesset vote, tension rises in the West Bank...
Last week's parliamentary crisis began when the Begin government alienated a few right-wing extremists in the Knesset by sticking to its plan to withdraw from the Sinai. Thus, when Begin faced his 25th no-confidence motion since 1977 and his fifth since his re-election last June, he was opposed not only by the Labor Party and two small minority groups, but by a handful of his usual supporters. Chief among these was Rabbi Haim Druckman, 49, a Deputy Minister who belongs to the six-member National Religious Party. The bronze-bearded Druckman, the father...
...last week's Knesset session, attention was focused on Begin, who leaned heavily on a cane as he took his seat at the government's table, and on Rabbi Druckman, who sat two rows behind the Prime Minister. Begin took occasional notes as Opposition Leader Shimon Peres perfunctorily charged the government with incompetence in its handling of the West Bank. Demanded Peres: "What are our ambitions? To add 1.3 million Arabs, against their will, to Israel, and make Israel a binational state on a one-way street to conflict...
That evening, at a glittering dinner in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, Mitterrand warned his hosts that not all of his views would please them. "But you will understand," he said, standing beneath a Marc Chagall fresco depicting the Jews' return to Israel, "that a friend can only be your friend if he preserves his freedom of judgment and tells you what he thinks." The next day, in an address before the Knesset, Mitterrand spelled out publicly what he had told Begin privately: Israel must recognize the Palestinian demand for an independent state. "What I want to make...
Mitterrand's decision to speak on behalf of the Palestinians while in Israel was altogether in character. On a state visit to Saudi Arabia last year, he was not afraid to stress France's unwavering commitment to Israel's security. In Jerusalem, he told the Knesset that it was up to the Palestinians to decide who would speak for them, but that the Palestine Liberation Organization could not hope "to sit at the negotiating table as long as it denies Israel's right to exist...