Word: shimon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...began last week-after the bitterest election campaign in Israel's 33-year history-a struggle for power between Prime Minister Menachem Begin, 67, head of the ruling Likud bloc, and Shimon Peres, 57, leader of the Labor Party. Both men immediately started to try to put together a coalition government that would control at least 61 seats, the number needed for a Knesset majority. Begin clearly had the best chance of succeeding, but the likelihood was that any government's margin would be so slim that new elections might have to be called within a year...
...last big chance for victory, and he made the most of the opportunity. In a televised debate with Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Labor Party Leader Shimon Peres charged that his opponent not only was responsible for Israel's faltering economy but that he and his Likud coalition had fought a dirty election campaign. Declared Peres: "There was an attempt at character assassination of me as a man, and of Labor as a party." Peres called the campaign "the most violent, the most insulting, the most difficult that Israel has ever known...
When Labor Party Leader Shimon Peres condemned the raid, arguing that quiet diplomacy might have obviated the need for it, Begin lashed out with a vengeance. Said he: "I hate, with a mortal hatred, the word 'treason.' But there is something of sabotage in the statements of Israel's Labor Party." Then Begin went on to approvingly quote a Knesset ally who said that Peres "had stuck a knife in the nation's back...
...February, but it was canceled after Yadin reiterated his strong objections. A third date, in March, was scrubbed for undisclosed reasons. In May, the ministerial committee authorized Begin to choose his own date for the raid, but strong objections about timing were raised by Opposition Leader Shimon Peres, who had been briefed on the scheme, and the strike was once more postponed...
...inside the country?there was an immediate suspicion that the raid and its timing had more to do with Israel's June 30 national election than with impending nuclear threats from the Iraqis. The six-month campaign between Begin's ruling Likud coalition and the opposition Labor Party of Shimon Peres was one of the most strained in the country's history. Owing in part to Begin's tough stance on the Syrian missiles in Lebanon, his party had moved ahead, 38% to 33%, in a poll conducted before the raid. The Likud had trailed in January...