ABSTRACT
In Chapter 2, I said that the Labor Party is the dominant party in Israel's multiparty system. According to Durverger (1969:309), "Domination is a question of influence rather than strength; it is also linked with belief. A dominant party is that which the public opinion believes to be dominant." Israeli public opinion verified by observers of the Israeli political scene seems to concur that the Labor Party has enjoyed this unique position of dominance, at least up to the last election in 1973 (cf. Arian, 1972:187-200, 1975). It is particularly relevant to the present analysis that whereas Labor's dominant political position was still intact during the proceedings of the Standing Committee, its members seemed to recognize that the party's position of ideological or moral dominance, which had identified it with the state in the initial post-Independence poch, had been gradually eroded as a consequence of subsequent rapid social, economic, and political change (cf. Arian, 1975:303).
