Word: likud
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...surprise of Washington, if not to that of his countrymen, Begin became Premier after his Likud coalition won a narrow victory in last May's national election, thereby ending 29 years of Labor-led coalition governments. Many Israelis had dismissed Begin as an aging, right-wing relic of their country's fierce struggle for independence. But, though ailing with heart trouble, Begin has responded actively to Sadat; he has demonstrated a large sense of history and a determination to be remembered as the man who brought peace to Israel...
...Middle East?for better or for worse. And in accepting Sadat's overtures to direct contacts, Begin has shown an initiative and enterprise somewhat surprising for an old independence fighter and memorably different from the dogged, entrenched positions that were taken by the Labor governments that preceded his Likud faction in power...
Leaders of Begin's conservative Likud coalition correctly argued that Israel was overdue for an economic cold-water treatment of some sort. In the wake of the 1973 war, Jerusalem's annual balance of payments deficit has ballooned from about $1 billion to $2.6 billion this year, causing total foreign indebtedness to soar to more than $10 billion. Meanwhile, an alarming rise in inflation (40% this year alone) has slowed real economic growth, from a 10% annual average to zero in 1977. Any thought of engineering a turnaround by expanding the Labor Party's elaborate, 29-year...
...plan fails, the opposition Labor Party will doubtless reap the benefits at the polls-but not until the 1981 elections. Ironically, one provision of the Likud economic plan might have changed the results of the election that brought Begin to power: the legalization of foreign bank accounts for Israeli citizens. The most prominent violators of the old law banning such accounts were former Labor Premier Yitzhak Rabin and his wife Leah. They admitted keeping $20,000 in Washington, D.C., banks, thus causing Rabin's resignation and contributing to the Likud victory...
After five months of indecision, the Democratic Movement for Change, Israel's newest and third-largest political bloc (behind Likud and Labor), finally voted last week to join the government. Until now, Premier Menachem Begin's ruling Likud coalition has had a bare majority-63 seats in the 120-member Knesset; with the addition of D.M.C.'s 15 seats, it will have a far more comfortable 78-seat majority. In return, the D.M.C.'s leader, Yigael Yadin, 60, former general and world-renowned archaeologist, will become Deputy Premier, and his party will get an additional three...