Seventh Knesset
(1969 - 1973)
The main event during the term of the seventh
Knesset was the Yom Kippur
War, whose domestic and international political ramifications manifested
themselves only during the term of the eighth Knesset.
Even before the war was over most of the African states
broke off their diplomatic relations with Israel. The war was preceded
by peace initiatives on behalf of the UN (the Jarring mission)
and the U.S. (the Rogers Plan),
which inter alia led to the breakup of the National Unity Government.
The Geneva Peace Conference convened on the eve of the elections to the eighth Knesset.
At the beginning of 1970, amendment No. 2 was introduced
into the Law
of Return, which defined a Jew for the purpose of the right of return
as anyone born to a Jewish mother or has converted and is not a member
of another faith. In this period a wave of immigration
from the Soviet Union began, and there was a problem housing all
of these immigrants. At the same time in the Soviet
Union Jews who identified with Israel were persecuted. The most
marked event in this sphere were the Leningrad Trials.
The Knesset also dealt with the activities of the
Jewish Defense League in the U.S., its attacks on Soviet offices in
the US, as well as the League's activities in Israel, under rabbi Meir
Kahane, and especially the League's attempts to convince members
of Israel's minority populations - Arabs and Druze - to emigrate
from the country.
The case of Meir
Lansky - one of the Jewish heads of the Mafia in the U.S., who sought
asylum in Israel - was also on the agenda. The Knesset dealt extensively with the subject of economic gaps in the society,
and the term poverty line was coined. The Black Panthers started a series
of violent demonstrations in Jerusalem.
A sub-committee in the Knesset Economics Committee dealt with the problem
of traffic accidents, after the number of fatalities in such accidents
rose, towards the end of the 1960's, to over 400 a year.
In this period the wave
of airline hijackings continued, and among
the famous terrorist acts in the period were
the attack at Lod airport and the murder
of the Israeli sportsmen in Munich. All
parts of the House were united in condemning
the PLO,
its declarations and activities.
Sources: The Knesset |