Word: knesset
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...avail. Leaders of the opposition, principally the Labor Party candidate for Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, plotted a parliamentary assault aimed at finishing off the government. To avoid such a showdown, the Begin Cabinet voted Sunday to ask the Knesset to call an early election on July 7, four months ahead of schedule. Begin's government had sounded its finale in the kind of unruly Cabinet session that had become a hallmark of his 3½ years in office. The issue had originally seemed relatively benign: a pay raise for the country's 65,000 teachers, approved earlier...
...resigned from the Cabinet once before in opposition to the Camp David peace accords, was not about to relent. When the Cabinet finally voted to give the teachers the increase, he made good on his threat and tendered his resignation. His defection and that of four other Knesset colleagues reduced Begin's coalition to 58 votes in the 120-seat Knesset, three short of the 61 needed to carry a majority. "I am not disappointed," Begin unconvincingly remarked later. "This is a democracy...
Next day the Cabinet met again to discuss whether to present its own bill to the Knesset for an early election, which would save Begin and his government from the ignominy of being forced to resign on an opposition motion of no confidence. The government would thus be able to stay in place through the election campaign. Most Cabinet members favored this comparatively graceful course, but it was decided to hold off until a small clique of diehard Begin supporters-led by Sharon and Housing Minister David Levy-had time to embark on their last-ditch exercise in vote bartering...
...happened, the Begin government's unbecoming exit was even accompanied by a last-minute scandal. The Knesset voted to lift the parliamentary immunity of Cabinet Minister Aharon Abuhatzeira, head of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, so that he could face criminal indictment. Abuhatzeira had been under investigation for months as an alleged recipient of bribes in return for having funneled government funds to phantom religious institutions...
...unrelated incident, the Knesset was also shaken by the assassination of its only Bedouin member, Sheik Hamad Abu Rabiya, 51, a courtly, popular legislator who was gunned down in his car outside Jerusalem's Holyland Hotel. He was the first member of the Knesset to be murdered in its 32-year history. Police subsequently arrested five suspects, including two men who were members of the Druze religious sect, which has often been at odds with the Bedouins...