jected, the editors of Ha'olam Hazeh, together with some like-minded public figures, formed an ideological group, which we called Semitic Action. After year-long deliberations, this group published the Hebrew Manifesto, a program of 126 points, including the establishment of a federation in Palestine and a great Semitic confederacy throughout the Middle East, the return of the refugees, and many other ideas we had been fighting for since 1950 in the "Certain Weekly." Semitic Action never became a political factor, but its voice was loud and clear.
The creation of a real political force came about in 1965, as a culmination of the battle of Ha'olam Hazeh itself. The Eshkol government, under pressure from the religious parties, promulgated a special law aimed at curbing the publication's outspoken style. This happened on the eve of elections, and pushed me into parliamentary politics. Encouraged by the public outcry against such a blatant move to silence the magazine's voice, we set up our own list for the 1965 elections. After a hectic campaign, we received 1.2 per cent of the national vote, enough to put me into Israel's parliament, the Knesset, as a one-man parliamentary group. Significantly and paradoxically, in three sectors of the population we received a much higher percentage of the vote: in the army, among the Arabs who live in Israel, and in several border settlements. The young and the vigorous wanted a new force, and they gave us the opportunity.
For the two years leading up to the June war, I voiced in parliament the ideas propounded in Ha'olam Hazeh, the ideas which are the outgrowth of the experiences of my generation and which I shall try now to define.