Again Ben-Gurion
THE results of the general election in Israel were a little like ours. Mr. Ben-Gurion not only got in yet again, but with an increased share of votes and of scats—to the surprise of most of the prophets in a land of prophets, who had thought that the party in power couldn't look forward to continuing and increasing success, year after year. One of the generally accepted reasons for the results that proved them wrong—to make more marked the parallel between Mr. Ben- Gurion and his Mapai Party and Mr. Macmillan and his Tories—is the increased and increasing prosperity of the electorate : a spirit of 'I'm all right, Jacob.'
It had been thought that greater success would have attended the brisk electoral campaign of the extreme right-wing, aggressively nationalist Herut Party (the Yiddisher Nazis, so to speak), but their gain in seats from fifteen to seventeen was a dis- appointment to them and a relief to those Israelis who realise that the problem of co-existence with Egypt and the Arab World will eventually be solved, if at all, by discreet diplomacy, not by war. This in spite of the fact that part of Mr. Ben- Gurion's present popularity is due, no doubt, to the prestige won in the Sinai campaign for his party, his policy and the military leader who is now his party colleague, General Dayan.
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