As Premier Menachem Begin prepared for his summit meeting with President Anwar Sadat at EI Arish next weekend, a serious rift was opened between himself and Defense Minister Ezer Weizman over the 22-point autonomy plan for the West Bank and Gaza Strip that a majority of the II-man ministerial committee on autonomy approved last Thursday.
Weizman objected strenuously to the plan as far too hardline and detailed to serve even as Israel’s opening position if the negotiations are to succeed. During the tense 7 1/2 hour ministerial committee meeting marked by sharp verbal exchanges between himself and Begin, he announced that he would vote against the plan when it is presented to the full Cabinet for debate tomorrow. He also said he would ask to be relied from serving on the team of six ministers headed by Interior Minister Yosef Burg, which is to conduct the negotiations with the Egyptians.
The latest crisis between Begin and Weizman — which was headlined in the Egyptian as well as the Israeli press over the weekend — came at the worst possible time for Begin’s government. Coinciding as it does with mounting public resentment over runaway inflation, it has given the Labor Alignment opposition a potent weapon to attack the government on both the political and economic fronts. A public opinion poll published by Yediot Achronot over the weekend gave likud only a 4 percent lead over Labor should elections be held now, its narrowest margin since likud’s election victory in 1977.
moreover, the defection of Weizman on the crucial issue of autonomy barely a week before Israelis and Egyptians start their negotiations on the subject, can only weaken Israel’s position. Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres charged in a telephone interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency over the weekend that the Likud government was “falling apart” on political and economic issues.
FEATURES OF THE AUTONOMY PLAN
Several features of the autonomy plan are, in fact, considerably tougher than the program originally proposed by Begin to the ministerial committee two weeks ago. It articulates specifically Israel’s demand that the “source of authority” for the autonomous councils to be elected on the West Bank and Gaza Strip remain the Israeli Military Government.
Under Begin’s doctrine, the Military Government will be “withdrawn” — the term used advisedly in the Camp David accords — but not abolished. In his initial proposal, Begin only implied that point. But under pressure from Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon and Education Minister Zevulun Hammer, he made it specific in the final version.
The plan also specified total Israeli control over government-owned and uncultivated lands on the West Bank and over all of the territory’s water sources. It concludes with two unilateral declarations: that Israel will never agree to a Palestinian state and that it will demand sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the end of the five-year transition period of autonomy.
More moderate ministers were reportedly opposed to including these ultimatums in a plan that, after all is supposed to serve as a negotiating document. But the hardliners, with Begin’s full endorsement, prevailed. While Weizman opposed the plan almost in its entirety, Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Deputy Premier Yigael Yadin are understood to have voted against those sections specifying Israeli control over State lands and water supplies.
WEIZMAN SEEKING TO BOW OUT
Weizman, for his part, has indicated that he will not participate in the Cabinet vote on the autonomy plan as a demonstration of his lack of confidence in it. His view, stated vigorously in the ministerial committee, is that Israel should enter the talks with Egypt — due to start in Beersheba next Friday — without any detailed or binding paper but rather with broad, informal guidelines prepared by the Cabinet to instruct the negotiating team.
He told the ministerial committee that his views were shared by the army and the defense establishment. That drew an angry rejoinder from Begin that the Defense Minister did not represent the army. “You represent the government toward the army” Weizman was told.
The Defense Minister confirmed in a Yediot Achronot interview Friday that he does not intend to participate in the autonomy negotiations although he will retain his membership on the supervising, committee of II ministers.
Government circles conceded today that they are worried about the Begin-Weizman clash. Should the Defense Minister resign from the Cabinet, the repercussions could be catastrophic for Begin’s coalition government. But confidants of Weizman said over the weekend that he is not considering resignation. They said that, on the contrary, he will continue to fight with determination for his views and expected, ultimately, to succeed and thereby prevent Israel from making the same kind of mistakes that threatened the peace treaty talks with Egypt last winter.
These sources said that Weizman feels that while he and Dayan — Israel’s principal negotiators in the treaty process — were often overruled by the Cabinet, their concepts eventually were adopted by the Cabinet majority. He believes, however, that the delays and shifts were harmful to the peace process and fears a similar situation will develop in the autonomy talks.
DIFFICULT TO PREDICT OUTCOME
Political pundits are wary of predicting the outcome of a prolonged quarrel between Begin and Weizman. While Weizman is popular in the public opinion polls, he lacks a firm base of support within Herut where Begin’s tough approach to autonomy is certain to win back some of the waverers and diehards who were dissatisfied with the peace treaty with Egypt.
Herut holds its national convention next month and Begin is expected to easily outmaneuver his Defense Minister should Weizman provoke a confrontation. Nevertheless, with the economy in severe trouble and the government’s popularity declining according to the opinion polls, Begin is believed to want to avoid an all-out clash and may seek to smooth over his differences with Weizman at least for the time being.
Government circles maintain that no serious threat exists to its parliamentary majority. That view is based in part on the assumption that Yodin’s Democratic Movement will not rock the boat for fear of new elections that would probably wipe it off the political map.
The Labor opposition takes quite a different view. Many Laborites are convinced that the Likud government is now more vulnerable than ever. In a statement released today, the Labor Party leadership heaped scorn on the autonomy plan which, they said, is tottering toward collapse even before the negotiations with Egypt begin.
VIEW OF THE LABOR OPPOSITION
In his interview with the JTA, Peres charged that Begin is heading blindly for a bi national state. By proclaiming there is no more “green line,” the demarcation between Israel and the West Bank, by insisting that autonomy will apply to people, not territory, and offering Israeli citizenship to West Bank and Gaza Strip Arabs, Begin was “inviting” them to be part of the autonomy, Peres said. “We shall wake up one morning and find ourselves with a bi-national state with three million Jews and two million Arabs,” he said.
Peres accused Begin of presenting a hardline version of autonomy for “internal consumption.” In practice, he said, it contravened the Camp David agreement by retaining the Military Government as the final authority and would there fore be rejected out of hand by the Egyptians and the U.S. Peres noted that although the Camp David accords spoke of “withdrawal” not abolition” of the Military Government, in the same sentence the agreement stipulated that the “self-governing authority” is to “replace the existing Military Government.”
Peres said that if he were in office he would seek to renew the dialogue with Jordan, with the agreement of the Egyptians, to work out a territorial compromise on the West Bank. This option was implicit in the Camp David agreements in the repeated references to Security Council Resolution 242, Peres said. But Begin’s ideological opposition prevented the present government from even considering it, he said.
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