Word: weizman
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...decision to quit was precipitated in the end by a relatively minor budgetary dispute in which, ironically, moderate and hawk exchanged roles. Weizman was angered that Finance Minister Yigal Hurvitz, a hard-liner who had voted against the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, was advocating a 10% reduction in Israel's military spending. Weizman asserted that he could not be responsible for security if the cuts were approved. When he learned that the cuts would be recommended anyway, he decided to hand in his resignation. He stopped off at Begin's office in Jerusalem before the customary Sunday Cabinet...
...formal letter of resignation, delivered to Begin the next day, Weizman was even more critical. "In the matter of peace with Egypt," he wrote, "my heart is not at one with the government's policy. The road leading to the strengthening and consolidation of peace is indeed wide and open, but it is not being used. And here, Mr. Prime Minister, was the rare opportunity that you missed...
...pursuer of peace' in a government composed of peace saboteurs," he wrote. "In this attempt to undermine me, you again failed completely. You were given, Mr. Defense Minister, a rare opportunity, but you have abandoned it out of ambition that is mind-numbing." Privately, Begin professed astonishment at Weizman's resignation. "I've told all my friends I'm not going to stay in politics after I'm 70," he told aides. "Ezer is still young. He could have been Prime Minister one day. Why did he have to push so hard...
...Weizman will almost certainly do penance in the political wilderness, at least for a while. Although Begin's aides accused the Defense Minister of attempting to provoke a palace revolt, no one in the Cabinet or Weizman's Herut Party followed him out the door. Weizman denied any such intention, but he told TIME last week that he would not be unhappy to see Begin's government collapse. In fact, the timing of his departure could hardly have been calculated to do more damage to Begin's grip on power. Beset by an annual inflation rate...
Nothing demonstrated that so much as the futility of Begin's attempts to replace Weizman in the Israeli Cabinet's second most important and sensitive post. He first asked Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir to move over to Defense. The hawkish Shamir, 64, a Polish emigrant like Begin, was Speaker of the Knesset before replacing Moshe Dayan as Foreign Minister two months ago. To replace Shamir, Begin tapped Energy Minister Yitzhak Moda'i, 55, a leader of the Liberal Party, which together with Herut forms the backbone of the Likud governing coalition. Both men abstained on the Knesset...