ABSTRACT
On May 17, 1977, the Israeli electorate voted to turn out a sitting government for the first time since the establishment of the state. Indeed, it was the first serious setback for Labor since the struggle between the Labor camp and its opponents in the late 1920s had led to the ascendancy of the former, culminating in the Labor party victory in the 1931 elections for the Jewish national assembly in Mandatory Palestine. It is not unfair to say that this defeat symbolized the end of the first generation of Israeli statehood. That generation, which had witnessed the founding moments of the state between 1947 and 1949, reached the peak of its power in the Six-Day War of 1967 and entered its final period with the Yom Kippur W ar in 1973.
