Labor and Likud Clashing over Issue of International Mideast Peace Confab

Labor and Likud are clashing again over the issue of an international conference for Middle East peace, specifically whether Vice Premier and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres stepped beyond the bounds of government policy when he stated during his trip to Europe last week that Israel was amenable to such a conference under certain conditions.

At a Labor Party caucus Wednesday night, calls were heard to dissolve the unity coalition government because of Likud attacks on Peres while he was abroad. But most pundits believe the latest flare-up will subside, as others have in the past. Nevertheless, fundamental differences exist between the coalition partners over how to pursue peace, new Jewish settlements in the administered territories and other issues.

On Monday, Minister-Without-Portfolio Moshe Arens of Likud accused the Foreign Minister of “creating policies” which other members of the government learned of only from the newspapers. When he returned from Europe Wednesday, Peres insisted that his remarks about an international conference and the conditions for participation by the Palestinians and the Soviet Union conformed with government policies approved by the Knesset.

But Premier Yitzhak Shamir told the Knesset Wednesday, an hour before Peres landed, that the Cabinet has as yet reached no decisions with respect to an international conference. Shamir’s own opinion, expressed several days ago, was that such a conference would pose a grave danger to Israel.

PERES DEFENDS HIS STATEMENTS

Peres, who held an impromptu press conference at Ben Gurion Airport, said his views were contained in a speech he made to the Knesset last September after returning from the United Nations General Assembly in New York. He said the Knesset, including the Likud faction, voted confidence in his speech “and so this was a resolution of the parliament.”

Peres also referred to his agreement with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt when they met in Alexandria last year to set up a joint preparatory group for an international conference. “I consider this the official position of Israel and no person can change it unless there will be a majority to do so,” Peres said.

He said there were also points of agreement with Jordan on how the conference could be structured. The chief provision was that it would have no power to impose a solution and would not be a substitute for direct negotiations. Nor would any nation that has no diplomatic relations with Israel be allowed to participate, Peres said. In an obvious reference to the Soviet Union, he said the participants not only must have official ties with Israel but they must not maintain policies which discriminate against the Jewish people. Peres said that in Brussels he had urged the Foreign Ministers of the European Economic Community to pressure Moscow to relax its policies toward Soviet Jews and toward Israel.