Israelis look to Rabin - archive

Tel-Aviv, April 22.
General Yitzhak Rabin tonight narrowly won the Israeli Labour Party’s nomination to form the next Government. If he succeeds at 52, he will be the youngest Prime Minister in the history of the State and the first to have been born here.

After a decorous two-hour debate, the party’s central committee gave General Rabin 298 votes to 254 for the only other candidate, the Minister of Information,Mr Shimon Peres.

General Rabin, who entered Parliament in the December elections and was appointed Minister of Labour, must now try to construct a coalition from the present Knesset. Failing that, he will lead the Labour list in another general election.

The new leader’s appeal is that he is untainted by the faction-fighting that has driven his party and soured the public, and his record is perceived as that of a winner. He commanded the Israeli forces in their most glorious victory, and he was ambassador to Washington at a time of greatest American benevolence, in arms and money.

Mr Pinhas Sapir, the Finance Minister and party supremo, supplied the frankest explanation of General Rabin’s success. “The key thing,” he said in his nomination speech, “is that Yitzhak Rabin would be the choice not only of the party, but of the nation. We shall prove by choosing him that the party is not only concerned with protecting its own interests, but that we are listening to the demands for change.”

The central committee brushed aside a memorandum published today by his former deputy, General Ezer Weizman, alleging that General Rabin collapsed with “acute anxiety” in the crisis preceding the Six-day War. Mr Sapir dismissed it as intolerable interference in Labour’s internal affairs, and no one was in a mood to argue.

The charges are, however, weighty and detailed. Unless they are refuted they will continue to cast a shadow over General Rabin’s credentials for the premiership Opposition parties may prove less generous than the Labour conference. Tonight, however, all was sweetness and unity. The two candidates had fought a scrupulous campaign and Mr Peres put on a convincing show of rejoicing in General Rabin’s triumph. General Rabin himself celebrated the healthy, democratic way in which the party had chosen its new leader.

It was, indeed, the first time Labour had done so by majority vote rather than by endorsing the nominee of the machine politicians. An equally salubrious sign was the way speeches and votes cut across factional lines.

General Rabin is a man of strict and analytical mind. If he changes Israel’s foreign or domestic policy it will be for pragmatic rather than ideological reasons.

During his Washington stint, he was a vigorous advocate of Israeli withdrawal from the Suez Canal. Tonight he gave priority to negotiating disengagement on the Syrian front. He is deeply suspicious of Soviet motives and an enthusiastic champion of the American connection.

After paying tribute to Mrs Meir, General Rabin said in his acceptance speech: “Now the time has come for the sons of the founders to assume their role.” Mrs Meir did not attend tonight’s debate but sent a message of congratulations to the winner. The party, she said, had every reason now to warrant the confidence of the people.