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16 | Israeli Society After the Yom Kippur War
- Brandeis University Press
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340 16 IS| aELI SOCIETY AFTER THE YOM KIPPUR WA| * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * When the Yom Kippur War broke out, Israel was in the midst of an election campaign in which Golda Meir’s slogan claimed that the country’s situation had never been better. Given the war and its aftermath this choice of slogan was rather ironic. The elections were postponed until late December 1973 and held while the country was still in shock and while the disengagement negotiations were taking place. The Alignment (Hama¢arakh) comprising the Labor Party reestablished in 1968 as a unified party with Mapam, Rafi, and Ahdut Ha¢avoda lost five seats in the Knesset, dropping from fifty-six to fifty-one. This weakened it but did not cause its loss of hegemony. The Likud (comprising Gahal and some small right-wing parties), appearing in these elections for the first time, won thirty-nine seats (Gahal had won twenty-six in the 1969 elections). The result was a substantial shift in the balance of power between left and right. Golda Meir, however, managed to form a coalition with the National Religious Party. She insisted that Moshe Dayan continue as minister of defense. The Israeli public, whose pressure had brought about Dayan’s appointment to the defense portfolio on the eve of the Six-Day War, had put almost unlimited faith in Dayan as the man in charge of Israel’s security. Now their idol had let them down. It was a painful, di≈cult, unforgiving disappointment. Initially Dayan refused to join thegovernment.However,Meirsawhisrefusalnotasabowingtopublicopinion, which blamed him for the failures, but as an attempt to torpedo the government she had worked so hard to form. Dayan eventually capitulated and joined the government. In the meantime public pressure had led to formation of the Agranat Commission , an independent commission of inquiry chaired by a Supreme Court justice, which was to determine who was responsible for the mehdal (failure or great blunder) of the army being taken by surprise and unprepared for war. The commission ’s report apportioned blame among Chief of the General Sta√ David Elazar, the head of military intelligence and several of his aides, and Head of Southern Command Shmuel Gonen. The chief of sta√ and the other idf o≈cers were relieved of their duties. The commission chose not to blame the civilian leadership, a verdict received angrily by broad segments of the public, who expected justice to be meted out to the political leadership. The soldiers back from the war took part in mass demonstrations outside the government o≈ces under the slogan ‘‘Dayan—Resign!’’ israeli society after the yom kippur war 341 In the face of this public outcry, Golda Meir resigned on April 11, 1974, mandating the resignation of her government. The Labor Party central committee convened to elect her successor. The party’s veterans and its left wing (formerly Ahdut Ha¢avoda) favored Yitzhak Rabin. Shimon Peres, a close friend of Dayan, was the candidate of another section of the party and its right wing (formerly Rafi). Rabin won by a small margin. A new government was formed in June 1974 by Rabin, the Six-Day War chief of the General Sta√, who had recently completed his tenure as Israel’s ambassador to Washington, DC, and had served in a minor ministerial post in Golda Meir’s previous government. Although he was inexperienced as a politician, his nonparticipation in the decisions leading up to the Yom Kippur War was a point in his favor. Shimon Peres was named minister of defense. Thus, almost unnoticed, a change of generations took place in Israel’s leadership . Golda Meir came from the ‘‘founding generation’’ that had immigrated to Palestine in the early twentieth century and been part of all the enterprises and travails preceding statehood. It was a resolute, tough generation of leaders formed by the crises of the Yishuv period, World War Two, and Israel’s wars. When Levi Eshkol died in 1969, the baton of leadership should have been passed to the native-son generation that fought in the War of Independence. But out of fear that a contest between the two candidates, Moshe Dayan and Yigal Allon, would tear the party apart, Golda Meir was chosen as an interim measure to defer the internal struggle. With Golda’s departure the veterans’ generation, which saw itself as personally responsible for the fate of the Zionist enterprise, left the political stage. After the Yom Kippur War Israeli politics moved from the corridors...