Word: knesset
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Backing party loyalty against the national interest, the Knesset, dominated by Begin's Likud coalition, twice supported the Prime Minister last week: it refused to condemn the Israeli invasion of West Beirut, and it refused to call for a formal commission of inquiry. Only after days of rising protest did Begin agree to ask Supreme Court Chief Justice Yitzhak Kahan to conduct an investigation. If he undertakes the assignment, Kahan will probably not have the power to subpoena witnesses, which will surely hamper his probe. By appointing Kahan to the task, Begin quieted some of his foes and bought himself...
...When the Knesset met Wednesday in special session, onstage, front and center, was Ariel Sharon, who had uttered not a word in public since the news of the massacre broke in Israel four days earlier. Head bowed, he lumbered slowly into the dining room and quietly looked over his speech. Later, as Begin entered the Knesset chamber, he carefully averted his eyes from his Defense Minister...
Although the Knesset supported the government by refusing to call for an investigation, the 48-to-42 vote did not accurately reflect the sense of anguish that prevailed in the country. Protest meetings were held all week, starting with a demonstration at the Prime Minister's residence in Jerusalem and ending with a mass rally attended by 350,000 people in Tel Aviv. Energy Minister Yitzhak Berman resigned because of Begin's failure to appoint a full-scale commission of inquiry. So did Menachem Milson, the civil administrator of the West Bank who had been appointed by Sharon...
Before the weekend massacre, the new crisis in Lebanon seemed likely to preclude indefinitely any debate within Israel over Reagan's proposals. Begin easily won approval from the Knesset for his stinging rejection of the plan, and aides made no secret of the fact that his strategy would be to kill it by silence. U.S. officials saw little they could do to refocus attention within Israel on the plan. Grumbled a senior White House adviser: "A cynical person might think that the Israelis went into West Beirut to provoke us into some land of sanction and thus to discredit...
...victory in 1977, was in deep trouble. With polls showing the Prime Minister's popularity at its highest point since his conservative Likud coalition came to power, small wonder that Begin was threatening to call early elections that could give him an absolute majority in the 120-seat Knesset and keep Labor out of the government for four more years...