Surprise Vote

Herzog is elected President

Prime Minister Menachem Begin sat glumly in his chair, but members of the Labor opposition burst into jubilant shouts as the speaker read the final tally. In a secret ballot, the Israeli Knesset had elected the Labor Party candidate, Chaim Herzog, 64, a former Ambassador to the United Nations, to serve as President for the next five years. He defeated a politically obscure candidate put up by the Likud, Supreme Court Justice Menachem Elon, 59, by a vote of 61 to 57.

Although the presidency is a largely ceremonial and nonpartisan post, the results meant that seven members of Begin's coalition had defected, delivering the Prime Minister an embarrassing defeat. It echoed the humiliation Begin suffered in 1978 when Labor also won the presidency with the popular Yitzhak Navon. Earlier this year, Navon decided not to seek another five-year term. Instead, he may become a contender for leadership of the Labor Party, which means he could be Begin's opponent in the next election.

Political analysts were divided over just what had happened. There was some speculation among Knesset members that the defectors might have come from two tiny parties in the coalition, the ultrareligious Agudat Yisrael and Tami, an ethnic party of Sephardic Jews. Another explanation might be that some members simply preferred a man of Herzog's stature. Said Labor Leader Shimon Peres: "We were wise enough to present the best candidate."

Herzog, indeed, has been a prominent figure in Israel for more than three decades. A major general, author (The Arab-Israeli Wars), lawyer and businessman, he rose to prominence during two tours as director of military intelligence (1948-50 and 1959-62) and then as Israel's first military governor of the occupied West Bank. Israelis know him best for the informed military commentaries he provided during the 1967 Six-Day War. Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1918, he immigrated to Palestine in 1935 but returned to England to study at Cambridge. In 1939 he enlisted in the British army, and continued his military career in the Israeli armed forces after the birth of Israel in 1948. Herzog has close ties to both the Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities and is regarded by Israelis as urbane and articulate.

Meanwhile, there were further signs last week that the Begin government was making an effort to improve its strained relations with Washington. The Cabinet voted to resume Israel's practice of sharing military intelligence information with the U.S. Such a policy had been in effect since 1967. But during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon last summer, Sharon, who was then Defense Minister, decided to halt Israel's practice of sharing tactical military information after Washington had held up the sale of 75 additional F-16 fighter planes to Israel. Next month a U.S. Air Force team will debrief Israeli pilots and infantry personnel on the tactics they used against Syria's Soviet-made planes, tanks and missiles.

The impasse was resolved on the recommendation of Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens, who was Ambassador to the U.S. until Begin appointed him to replace Sharon six weeks ago. Says an Israeli defense official: "Arens is looking to remove the roadblocks and get the special relations [with the U.S.] on the main track again." In a conciliatory gesture of its own, the Reagan Administration announced last week that it would sell Israel 200 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles for $16 million.

If Arens has been successful in improving the atmosphere, the Begin government was still not yielding to U.S. pressure on key issues in the negotiations for withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon. Some State Department officials suspect that Israel is stalling in hopes that Jordan's King Hussein will abandon joining the broader peace initiative presented by President Reagan last September. According to Reagan's plan, the Palestinian problem would be solved by linking the Israeli-occupied West Bank to Jordan.

But Hussein wants to see some sign of Israeli movement in the withdrawal talks before he commits himself to any new negotiations. Says a Washington analyst: "Israel is doing two things simultaneously. It wants to appear reasonable without giving away its bottom line on security in southern Lebanon, and it wants to postpone agreement until Hussein moves." According to that theory, Israel would prefer to have the peace initiative fail because Hussein had backed away from participation rather than because Israel had refused to negotiate. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.