Begin coalition threatened as party ponders pullout
| Tel Aviv
Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in a bid to save his fragile coalition, appealed to a key party to reconsider its threat to leave the government. The Tami Party, largely made up of Sephardic Jews of North African or Middle Eastern descent, threatened to leave the coalition unless the government canceled cutbacks in social welfare payments and a 10 percent purchase tax surcharge.