Word: mapai
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...left, David Ben-Gurion, the shock-haired dynamo who is Premier of Israel, used to promise full-fledged socialism in Israel "in my lifetime." Each trying, hard-won year of the new republic, however, has found B-G preaching less socialism and seeking more capitalism. Last year his Mapai (Labor) Party was urged to form a stable, powerful cabinet with the free-enterprising General Zionists (Israel's No. 2 party). B-G cried "heresy." Never, said he, could his democratic, planned-economy socialists unite with such exploiters. Privately, B-G had another concern. He feared that a swing...
...Israel, the leading coalition party, Mapai, declared the "Jews were a scapegoat to cover difficulties within the country." Meanwhile, the pro-Russian, Communist and Mapam parties who together poll about 11 percent of the votes, were "shocked and confused...
From Dan to Beersheba. One day last week, Israelis went to 1,750 polling places from Dan in the north, to Beersheba in the south. When the votes were counted, B.G. was in as much trouble as ever. His Mapai had increased its popular vote from 35 to 37%, but had emerged with the same 46 seats. The Orthodox religious bloc had lost ground-from 16 to 14 seats. The pro-Soviet Mapam, formerly Israel's No. 2 party, dropped from 19 seats to 15. But B.G. had a new antagonist: into second place, increasing their seats from seven...
Histadrut & Mapai. The General Zionists don't care much about orthodox religion; they do care about orthodox economics. Pointing to a spectacular decline in the standard of living, the General Zionists campaigned against the tie-up between the Histadrut, the Israeli labor federation, and the cabinet, seven of whose 13 members (including B.G.) were Histadrut members. Histadrut is not only a trade union, enrolling 75% of all Israeli workers; it is also, by far, Israel's largest industrial employer, owning or managing 14% of all the nation's industry, including a virtual monopoly on cement production...
...tempered B.G. had blasted the General Zionists as a political aggregation of black-marketeers, the Orthodox bloc as fanatics, the Mapai as fellow travelers. Unless he swallowed some of his campaign oratory, his only possible partners in a new coalition would be such splinter groups as the Progressives (four seats), the pro-Mapai Arabs (five seats), the Mizrachi Religious Workers (eight seats), the Yemenites (one seat). Joined with them, B.G.'s Mapai could command a bare hold on the Parliament. In that case, Israel stood in danger of becoming, in Ben-Gurion's own phrase, "a second France...