Labor and Likud Feud over Response to Peace Plan Presented by Shultz

The Labor and Likud factions of Israel’s divided government battled Sunday over the new American peace package that Secretary of State George Shultz presented in writing to Premier Yitzhak Shamir on Friday.

Shultz requested that Israel provide a “clear response” to the plan by March 15, the date Shamir is scheduled to meet with President Reagan at the White House.

Shultz arrived in Israel at midnight Thursday after meeting twice last week with King Hussein of Jordan in London. He was closeted with Shamir for two hours Friday and met separately with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres before making quick visits to Damascus and Cairo. He returned to Washington on Saturday.

Shultz appears to have left the Labor-Likud coalition government in greater disarray than before he started his intensive shuttle diplomacy in the region Feb. 26. As a result, prospects of carly elections loom larger than ever.

The long-standing friction between Shamir, leader of Likud, and Labor Party leader Peres was further aggravated by the leak of the document Shultz left with both men Friday to the newspaper Yediot Achronot, which published a photocopy of it Sunday.

Shamir, saying only he, Peres and Hussein had seen it, implied that Peres was responsible for breaching the confidentiality of the letter. Peres hotly denied this and suggested the leak came from a source close to Shamir.

The letter outlines in some detail a tremendously accelerated timetable for negotiations between Israel and its Arab adversaries, beginning May 1, to be preceded in the middle of next month by an international conference under United Nations auspices.

Shultz has made it clear he considers his package an all-or-nothing proposition from which no components can be removed. Implicit in the plan, though not stated, is the principle of trading territory for peace.

That principle, and an international conference, are fiercely opposed by the Likud, while Labor is amenable to territorial compromise, an international. conference and a stepped-up timetable for negotiations.

The leadership and central bodies of the two major parties met Saturday night to consider their respective positions.

REPORTS OF A BITTER FIGHT

Sunday’s regular Cabinet meeting was declared a closed session of the Ministerial Defense Committee to avoid leaks. But this did not prevent reports emerging of a bitter fight.

Labor ministers pressed for the “clear response” demanded by Shultz, arguing that the prime minister must go to Washington next week as the head of government, not as the Likud party head, and must take an agreed response with him.

Shamir insists there will be no Israeli response until he receives the “clarifications” he says he demanded from Shultz.

Shamir also rejected Labor’s call for an immediate meeting of the Inner Cabinet, the government’s top policy-making body, consisting of five Labor and five Likud senior ministers. He argued that it would end in stalemate, as did the last two sessions of the Inner Cabinet: one held Feb. 25, a day before Shultz arrived in Israel, and the other on March 1, the day Shultz left the region to visit Hussein in London and attend a NATO summit conference in Brussels.

A smaller ministerial forum is scheduled to meet Wednesday.

Although Sunday’s Cabinet communique said there was a “discussion” after Shamir and Peres reported on their separate meetings with Shultz, the discussion was said to have been an exchange of accusations and insults between the two.

Shamir insisted the Shultz document was not an ultimatum and that the secretary of state told him there could be amendments. The prime minister proposed seeking clarifications from the Americans while he is in Washington.

Labor spokesmen said that without a clear decision by the Cabinet, whatever Shamir tells Reagan and Shultz in Washington will be the response of one political party, not an official reply of the Israeli government.

RABIN: A SERIOUS CHANCE FOR PEACE

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, speaking for the Labor Party, told Israel Radio Sunday morning that the Shultz plan contained a serious chance to achieve peaceful negotiations. If the government rejects the U.S. move, it will create the impression that Israel is refusing to accept a reasonable proposal for peace negotiations, Rabin said.

While the impetus for early elections has come mainly from Likud, Labor ministers are now said to be giving serious consideration to the idea. If the government’s deadlock proves unbreakable, there would be little choice but for the two major parties to go to the electorate for a fresh mandate.

The Labor-Likud conflict seems to have obscured the fact that the public knows little of what Shultz achieved with the Arab leaders he has talked to during the last 10 days.

The Shultz plan is understood to resemble the “London document,” the once secret understanding reached between Peres and Hussein in London last April. Hussein was rumored to have backed off from that understanding and the outcome of his meetings with Shultz in London Tuesday and Thursday were said to have been inconclusive.

While Shamir, Peres and their ministers are by now doubtlessly privy to Hussein’s latest position, the public here is not. What seems definite is that the Jordanian ruler is as adamantly insistent on an international conference as a cover for negotiations with Israel as Shamir is opposed.

It is generally known that President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is the Arab leader most firmly supportive of the American initiative. But Shultz seems to have gotten a less than enthusiastic response from President Hafez Assad of Syria.

Damascus reportedly complained that Washington was trying to put an “American stamp” on what should be an international effort to resolve the Middle East conflict. But at the same time, Assad is said to consider Shultz’s initiative a positive move.

Shultz failed during his two visits to the region to find any Palestinians who were willing to meet with him. His letter to Shamir states that “Palestinian representation will be within the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation” that will address the Palestinian issue separately and independent of all other negotiations.