Word: knesset
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...Knesset had convened only a few minutes earlier to debate a measure of some consequence: a motion by the small (sixmember) opposition Shai Party to dissolve parliament and hold early elections. At the horseshoe-shaped Cabinet table, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, 66, complained to colleagues that he suddenly felt warm. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief and loosened his tie. When Deputy Prime Minister Yigael Yadin asked him if he was all right, Begin weakly replied: "Get a doctor...
After leaving the chamber unobtrusively and locating the Knesset's physician, Yadin returned and led Begin to the Prime Minister's office. At first Begin insisted he wanted to stay and take part in the vote, but colleagues assured him there was no need. As he waited for the ambulance to arrive, Begin joked with friends, but then appeared to be in pain. He told Cabinet Secretary Aryeh Naor, who had been hospitalized with a heart attack only a month earlier: "You just came out. Now I'm going...
...keyed debate on last week's motion, opposition speakers emphasized Israel's domestic problems: a current inflation rate of 133%, a 500% increase in the cost of living since Begin came to power in 1977, a huge foreign debt and a soaring emigration rate. But then the Knesset defeated the opposition's call for elections by a vote of 60 to 54. Neither Weizman nor former Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan supported the government; Weizman stayed away, after telling newsmen he was going fishing, and Dayan voted with the opposition...
...Prime Minister Menachem Begin last week, implicitly conceding what most Israelis now expect: Begin's shaky coalition government will probably not survive until the next scheduled elections in October 1981. Indeed, there is a remote chance that the end could come as early as this week. The Knesset is scheduled to debate a motion, supported by the opposition Labor Party, to dissolve itself and hold new elections within four months...
Begin has overcome similar motions in the past, but last week his coalition suffered the unexpected defections of two members from the small party called the Democratic Movement. That left the Prime Minister with a majority of only three seats in the 120-member Knesset. Two of those votes belong to his former Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and his recently resigned Defense Minister Ezer Weizman. Both men might well vote for early elections. In a speech to Haifa University graduates last week, Dayan declared, "The time has come for us to send the ball back into the people...