Word: meire
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...carry on while a successor is chosen to head the government until Israel's general elections next October. To fill that largely caretaker role, party leaders offered the top job to the one person around whom all Israeli politicians could rally: strongwilled, grandmotherly ex-Foreign Minister Golda Meir...
...that the helm be given to a younger person, whose power of action will not be restricted by age or health." That widely held feeling would not ultimately affect the choice. With the disciplined ranks of the labor party behind the leadership's choice, the decision, as Mrs. Meir once put it, "will not be made in the streets...
...Meir's supporters want her to take the interim premiership to head off a showdown between two younger contenders, whose rivalry might otherwise divide the government and country between now and October. They are Allon, 50, the favorite of the party establishment, and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, 53, whose immense popularity with the grass roots is not shared by the party brass. Something of a lone wolf, Dayan is not one either to seek or accept advice, and is considered unpredictable and undisciplined by the staunch conservatives of the Labor Party machine. A pragmatist who operates largely on intuition...
Last week Dayan let it be known that he would support Mrs. Meir for the premiership but would oppose any other candidate, whether Allon or such dark-horse possibilities as Secretary-General of the Labor Party Pinhas Sapir or Foreign Minister Abba Eban. The decision was prudent on Dayan's part, since he would stand little chance of winning a party fight with Mrs. Meir...
Nonetheless, Dayan's patience might well give Allon a substantial lead. As Premier, Mrs. Meir could be expected to advance the fortunes of Allon, her own favorite for the permanent premiership. In other matters, she would likely govern, as did Eshkol, by consensus politics, and make virtually no change in Israel's policies toward the Arabs. She had still to give her final decision at week's end, but after a lifetime in Israeli politics, she could be only too well aware that a "no" would open the way to a damaging intraparty dispute at a time...