Coming Together

Israel prides itself on being a socialist democracy in which labor is supreme. Of course, there can be too much of a good thing. For the past two years, no fewer than four separate labor parties have played leading roles in Israel's convoluted political life. The most important is Premier Levi Eshkol's Mapai, whose power stems directly from Histadrut, the all-encompassing state labor union. Then there are Achdut Ha 'avodah, a Histadrut splinter party led by Labor Minister Yigal Allon, and Mapam, which leans far to the left. Finally, there is the Rafi party of former Premier David Ben-Gurion and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, which broke away from the Mapai two years ago after a feud with Eshkol. Even in Israel, such an improbable segmentation could not continue forever. Ever since the June war, all four parties have felt obliged to support Eshkol, a fact that was bound to make Israelis wonder whether all four were really necessary. Last month, Allon led his Achdut Ha 'avodah into a formal merger with Mapai, hoping thereby to become the government candidate to succeed Eshkol, who tends to favor Allon's ambition. Last week the Rafi followed suit. Over the objections of Ben-Gurion--who still refuses to be associated with Eshkol "on personal and moral grounds"--a Rafi convention voted reluctantly to rejoin Mapai. The man behind the move was Dayan, whose one-eyed glamour and tooth-for-a-tooth toughness have made him the politician most likely to succeed at the polls--but without the support of Eshkol, who has always resented his dissident support of Ben-Gurion. That left only the leftist Mapam party out of the grand labor reunion. Eshkol has already started conversations to see what can be done about that.

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