Peres Courting Religious Parties in Hope of Creating ‘peace Front’

Labor Party leader Shimon Peres has announced that he will try to create a “peace front” with the religious parties in the Likud-led coalition government.

Peres, who is vice premier and finance minister, did not indicate which parties he had in mind when he made his proposal Sunday to the Labor Party’s dovish Mashov faction.

But Peres is said to feel an affinity with the ultra-Orthodox Shas and Degel HaTorah parties, which, like Labor, support territorial compromise in principle.

“Labor has two alternatives for the future,” Peres told his party colleagues, “to go with the Likud, and then be dragged behind the positions of the Likud, or to return to the old partnership with the religious parties.”

The Labor Party leader said he is not talking about leaving the national unity government or creating an alternative, narrow-based coalition. For now, he said, he only wants to create a majority within the government for peace.

But Likud officials promptly accused Peres of trying to undermine the coalition with his overtures to the religious parties.

Prime Minster Yitzhak Shamir said he would not allow that to happen. He predicted that Peres would fail in his courtship of the religious politicians.

Many observers are convinced that, in any case, the present government will founder soon on the peace issue. Both major parties seem to prefer trying to form a narrowly based coalition government to new elections.

PROMISE TO PRESERVE STATUS QUO

During Labor’s 30-year tenure in power, which ended with the Likud election victory in 1977, its coalition governments always included one or two religious parties.

Peres maintains he is now only trying to restore the traditional partnership between Labor and the religious bloc. He observed that Israel’s system of proportional representation requires the parties to enter into pre-election alliances.

Likud has seen its once solid partnership with the ultra-Orthodox factions erode recently.

The Agudat Yisrael party left the coalition last month, accusing Likud of reneging on promises it had made when establishing the coalition a year ago.

All of the religious parties are demanding that Likud kill pending legislation for electoral reform and the creation of a constitutional court. If adopted, the bills could drastically change the structure of Israeli polities.

Electoral reform would eliminate the minor parties. A constitutional court could end ultra-Orthodox domination of religious life and family matters in Israel.

Both measures enjoy strong support by Labor and Likud members of the Knesset. But either party would probably be willing to scuttle them to gain political advantage.

Peres has already promised his party’s potential religious partners that the status quo on religious issues would be maintained by a new Labor-led government.