Yitzhak Shamir and David Levy, bitter rivals whose power struggle caused Herut’s 15th convention to collapse in unseemly chaos last Thursday, may be inching toward a rapprochement this week in what many observers see is a last chance effort to keep alive the rotation of power agreement with the Labor Party.
The would-be peacemaker and the man who may have in the long run outmaneuvered both Levy and Shamir is Ariel Sharon, Herut’s most outspoken hardliner who allied his forces with those of Levy a week ago to deprive Shamir of the convention’s endorsement as leader of Herut.
The partly Sharon, a Yom Kippur War hero and probably the most controversial politician in Israel, is the only Herut figure who managed to emerge from the stormy convention politically strengthened.
The pandemonium had hardly died down when he astutely distanced himself from Levy, identified his camp as the “third force” in Herut and began a round of “shuttle diplomacy” between Shamir and Levy even while the two men and their aides continued to hurl verbal brickbats at each other.
Tempers cooled somewhat over the weekend. Shamir, who is Foreign Minister and a Deputy Premier in the Labor-Likud unity coalition government, called on his supporters to cease their war of words.
Levy, Minister of Housing and also a Deputy Premier, contributed to the cooling off when, Sunday night, he declined to be interviewed on the main television newscast. This act of restraint for Levy is the only one of the principles not to appear on television since the convention broke up.
Sharon, building on the atmosphere of relative civility, assumed the role of mediator with a formula to heal the lacerated Herut. His proposal is a three way division of power. Shamir would be elected chairman of Herut.
Levy would become chairman of the party’s Executive. Sharon would assume the chairmanship of its Central Committee. The arrangement, if agreed upon by all concerned, would be put before the convention which would reconvene, possibly in a week or so, for no more than a half day.
According to Sharon, the pre-arranged power sharing deal would be endorsed by voice vote and would in fact be unanimous since all three camps will have agreed in advance. Herut would emerge once again as a united party, or at least give the appearance.
Sharon’s plan got a cold shower from the Shamir camp. The Foreign Minister was not about to accept the largely honorary title of party chairman while fore going the key position of chairman of the Executive. It was pointed out that Menachem Begin, Herut’s founder, always held both chairmanships, the former giving him prestige and the latter effective control of the movement.
Levy, too, according to his aides, was unlikely to accept the three-way power-sharing scheme. Levy supporters are convinced that if the convention is resumed, their man can defeat Shamir. However, they concede they would need the backing of the Sharon camp.
SHARON’S POLITICAL STOCK HAS RISEN
Sharon is estimated to command the votes of 10-15 percent of the 2,000 convention delegates. Levy’s strength is estimated at least 35 percent. The balance are Shamir supporters. But Sharon’s political stock has risen. At the convention he overwhelmingly defeated Binyamin Begin, son of the former Premier, for chairman of the important credentials committee. That success provided him with clout far out of proportion to his numerical strength.
Sharon’s troika strategy, according to political observers, is to establish himself as the equal of Shamir and Levy at the party’s summit and he is poised to grasp that position at the most propitious moment.
His strategy is aided by growing fears in Herut that Labor is eager to exploit the party’s disarray. The Labor Party opens its convention on April 8 with the Israeli and much of the world’s media focussed on it. Unless Herut has put its house in order by then, it will be open to ridicule as a party unable to govern itself, much less the nation.
At risk is the rotation of power agreement where by Premier Shimon Peres must hand over his office to Shamir next October 13. The agreement which is the basis of the Labor-Likud coalition, was reached between Peres and Shamir on a personal basis. Peres is not required to relinquish his office to any other Likud leader.
The Premier has promised to carry out his part of the bargain. He renewed that pledge in fact at the festive opening of the Herut convention in Jerusalem on March 9. But Peres is already under pressure from within the Labor Party to renege on grounds that Herut has demonstrated its inability to run the country.
HERUT SEEN AS SERIOUSLY WEAKENED
Some political observers believe that even if Herut manages to patch itself up in the coming weeks, it has been seriously weakened in the public eye by the gross spectacle of its aborted convention.
These observers expect Labor will seize the first opportunity to break up the unity coalition. This could come at the next Cabinet crisis, whether it is over the economy, the Taba border dispute with Egypt or an ideological confrontation on issues where Labor and Likud are poles apart.
The internecine warfare within Herut meanwhile has paradoxically encouraged leaders of Likud’s Liberal Party wing to press for a swift merger with Herut. The merger has been under negotiation for some time and was expected to come about in the weeks following the Herut convention. Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai, leader of the Liberals, presumably believes that with Herut leaders feuding bitterly, his party is in a good position to take command after a merger.
Herut, the dominant partner in Likud was ready to merge with the Liberals on its terms. But enthusiasm for such a move has waned rapidly since the convention. A party divided against itself, the Herut leadership knows, is no longer in a position of strength.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
