New Coalition Moves Still Stalled

Efforts to form a new government continued to mark time today as the Labor Alignment put off until Tuesday a decision on whether to form a minority regime or a narrow coalition with a bare majority of one vote in the Knesset. The “Hobson’s Choice” faced by Labor Party leader Yitzhak Rabin is expected to be resolved in favor of a minority Cabinet in partnership with the Independent Liberal Party. The problem of forming a new coalition government was exacerbated when the National Religious Party announced Thursday that it would not join the government because the Labor Party refused to amend the Who is a Jew law as the NRP had demanded.

Such a regime would command only 58 Knesset votes, less than a parliamentary majority. But Rabin’s alternative, a coalition with the ILP and Shulamit Aloni’s Civil Rights Party that would give the government 61 out of the 120 Knesset seats, is regarded by observers as too high a price to pay for too little.

There is considerable aversion to the outspoken Ms. Aloni and her left-of-center faction within the Labor Alignment, stemming in part from her defection from the Labor Party before the last elections. Premier Golda Meir angrily stalked out of a Labor Party meeting late Thursday night after Party Secretary General Aharon Yadlin refused to put to a vote her demand that Ms. Aloni’s party be excluded from a new government. Rabin and Yadlin met with the ILP and CRP leaders Friday afternoon to discuss the formation of a narrowly based coalition.

DEADLINE SET FOR NEXT FRIDAY

Ms. Aloni reportedly agreed to join a coalition on the basis of the present care-taker government’s policy platforms. Mrs. Meir and other Labor Party leaders have warned that such a coalition would be too “dove-ish” and would force the National Religious Party into the arms of Likud.

Mapam, meanwhile, has proposed a Rabin-led government without the NRP but with the ILP and possibly the CRP. The suggestion was raised by Mapam Secretary General Meir Talmi at a meeting today of the party’s central committee. Mapam urged a quick decision on grounds that delay undermines Israel’s political stability. Talmi warned that Likud leaders are trying to create the impression that a civil war is imminent over the question of territorial withdrawals. He urged the ILP to agree to join a Rabin Cabinet and said the CRP should be included but that was not a must. Some political observers said today that Rabin was still holding the door open for the NRP to reconsider its decision not to join a Labor coalition.

Rabin’s efforts to form a new government have been slowed down by the high level negotiations with U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger on Syrian disengagement in which Rabin is participating. But the Labor Party leader was said today to be determined to have a new Cabinet to present to the Knesset no later than next Friday.