Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin has served notice on Likud that its unity coalition with the Labor Party will not survive long, unless the government moves speedily to activate the stalled peace process.
Although his position was stated unofficially in radio interviews Thursday, Rabin was clearly presenting an ultimatum to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to yield sufficiently to get an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue started.
He demanded a decision by the policy-making Inner Cabinet within “two or three weeks.”
The Prime Minister’s Office issued a terse statement Thursday saying Shamir was “not fazed” by Labor “threats.”
Rabin’s remarks were especially significant for their timing and because of his steadfast support for the preservation of the Likud-Labor coalition government, in the face of mounting sentiment in the Labor Party to abandon it.
Rabin, his party’s second in command after Vice Premier Shimon Peres, spoke out a day before Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens was scheduled to meet in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker.
Informed sources said Thursday that Rabin wants Arens instructed to adopt a more flexible position on the issues that have held up U.S.-Israeli-Egyptian peace diplomacy.
Political circles here regard the defense minister’s new stand as a potential turning point in the domestic-foreign policy stalemate that has bedeviled Israeli politics and frozen peace moves in the past several months.
It is considered especially critical because of the apparent weakening of Likud’s hard-line wing by the resignation of Ariel Sharon from the Cabinet this week.
LABOR LEADERSHIP CONVENES
The Labor Party’s leadership bureau was scheduled to convene late Thursday to endorse Rabin’s tough stand. That could give impetus to Peres’ efforts to put together a Labor-led coalition, with religious and leftist parties, to govern without Likud.
Rabin refused to be drawn into possible political scenarios in his interview on army radio Thursday morning, saying they are “subsidiary” to the main issue, which is advancing the peace process.
Rabin was co-author with Shamir of the peace initiative launched last May 14 with Cabinet approval.
It calls for Palestinian elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to select delegates who would negotiate with Israel for self-rule in the territories.
But the plan, though embraced by the United States, became stalemated over such matters as which Palestinians would be eligible to vote or run in the elections.
Israel ruled out any contact, direct or indirect, with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Acting as a buffer, Egypt offered to host an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue to set the ground rules for the elections.
Arens, Baker and Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid were tentatively scheduled to meet in Washington last month to arrange the dialogue.
The meeting has yet to take place. Shamir, under pressure from Likud’s right wing, refused to allow Israel to sit down with a Palestinian delegation that included deportees from the administered territories.
Likud also would bar Palestinian residence of East Jerusalem from voting in the elections.
The Labor Party is much more flexible on both issues and has been supportive of Egyptian efforts to resolve them.
READMISSION OF DEPORTEES PROPOSED
Rabin said Thursday that Egypt has responded “reasonably” to the United States with respect to the composition of the Palestinian delegation. He confirmed that Cairo’s responses were in line with the Labor Party’s ideas to bridge the gap between the two sides.
Rabin indicated that Cairo is calling for Israel to readmit certain Palestinians deported from the territories and allow them to participate in the preliminary negotiations. The defense minister noted pointedly that the authority to deport and to readmit rests with him.
On the franchise issue, persons with offices or homes in East Jerusalem who also maintained residences in the West Bank would be eligible to vote.
Rabin also indicated that the Egyptians agreed to announce the composition of the Palestinian delegation. The delegates, of course, would have been approved by the PLO, a provenance Israel could choose to disregard without losing credibility.
Finally, Rabin is apparently willing to compromise on the agenda of the dialogue.
Israel has insisted until now that it be devoted exclusively to the modalities of the elections. The Palestinians demand the right to introduce political subjects.
Rabin hinted that Egypt’s response on that matter was in line with Labor’s suggestion that the dialogue could begin with wide-ranging opening statements and then settle down to the mechanics of the election process.
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.
