Israelis got a preview Monday of what choice they will be offered when they vote to elect a new Knesset later this year.
The Labor Party is pledged to seek peace through territorial compromise, according to its foreign affairs and security platform, which was leaked to the news media Sunday night.
Likud, on the other hand, rejects unconditionally the idea of trading land for peace. Premier Yitzhak Shamir told cheering members of the Herut Central Committee in Tel Aviv on Sunday night that “the Arabs must understand that we will never part from Judea, Samaria and Gaza.”
He said the Palestinians would be able to run their own lives under an autonomy plan.
The Labor platform was drawn up by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, the party chairman, who was assisted by Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Labor Party Secretary-General Uzi Baram.
It was clearly tailored to satisfy both hawks and doves in Labor Party ranks, through it is obviously unacceptable to anyone committed to a “Greater Israel” — Israel plus the administered territories.
The platform will explicitly endorse the idea of an international conference for Middle East peace, advanced by U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and supported by Peres and King Hussein of Jordan.
The conference envisioned would serve as a framework for direct Israeli-Arab negotiations, but would have no power to impose solutions or veto agreements.
Likud refuses to accept any sort of international conference. At the Herut Central Committee meeting, Housing Minister David Levy, a serious rival to Shamir for party leadership, accused the prime minister of not articulating with sufficient force Likud’s rejection of the Shultz proposals.
According to unofficial reports, the Labor platform will spell out Israel’s determination to retain forever the united city of Jerusalem and its environs, as well as other areas necessary for security. It will urge the eventual cession of Arab-populated areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and their incorporation into and Jordanian-Palestinian federation.
Political observers pointed out that this is, in essence, the Allon Plan, which was proposed shortly after the 1967 Six-Day War by the late Yigal Allon, the foreign minister and deputy premier in the Labor-led government.
The platform will rule out a Palestinian state. It will propose that existing Jewish settlements remain in place, though without explaining under what precise legal circumstances.
“The basis is that peace is the foundation of security,” Laborite Gad Yaacobi, the minister of economic coordination, said Monday, explaining his party’s platform. “Peace is vital for maintaining a state with a Jewish majority living in democracy,” he added.
The Labor platform will also propose new elections or a national referendum before any agreed settlement is ratified.
Herut, meanwhile, did not vote for a party leader Sunday night. This was considered a tactical victory for Levy, whose supporters want him acknowledged as Herut’s No. 2 man before endorsing Shamir.
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