Cracks are becoming apparent in the Likud party as leaders of the opposition struggle to come up with a unified position against the Labor-led government’s policies on the peace process.
After having dominated the government for 15 years, the Likud, now out of power, is having trouble coming up with a clear policy to present to the nation as an alternative to the government’s handling of negotiations with the Palestinians, Syrians and other Arab neighbors.
The hawkish wing of the Likud, led by former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, has called upon the party to reject the principle of Palestinian autonomy in the territories, which was first outlined in the 1978 Camp David accords.
At the other end of the party spectrum are more moderate figures, such as former Police Minister Ronni Milo, who has supported the so-called “Gaza first” concept, under which Israel would work toward implementing Palestinian autonomy in the Gaza Strip unilaterally.
The party’s recently elected leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, has not yet come down firmly on either side, though moderates in the Likud have criticized him for cooperating too closely with the smaller right-wing parties in the Knesset: Tsomet and Moledet. At a meeting of the Likud Knesset faction on Monday, the first day of the parliament’s summer session, Netanyahu delivered a rousing call for unity and an energetic assault upon the ruling coalition.
He also announced that the opposition parties had decided jointly to reject any agreements with coalition parties that in the past involved informal cooperation during votes in which Knesset members from both sides were absent.
Netanyahu said the opposition parties came to the decision in order to make parliamentary life as difficult as possible for the Labor-led coalition.
But former Justice Minister Dan Meridor urged that the Likud maintain a distance from the smaller right-wing parties.
“We are not merely an opposition like them,” Meridor said. “We are the alternative.”
HAVE TO PRESENT ‘BOLD IDEAS’
Milo grabbed attention at the faction meeting by proposing formally that the Likud endorse the “Gaza first” approach to the peace process.
“We have to present the public with bold ideas,” he declared.
Likud insiders pointed out that “Gaza first” was espoused last summer by another major Likud figure, Moshe Arens, then defense minister.
But Arens did not go public with his opinion until after the Likud’s defeat in the June 1992 elections and his own decision to quit politics.
Another key figure in the party, Knesset member Ze’ev “Benny” Begin, tried to stake out a middle position between the hard-liners and the moderates.
Begin, rejecting Milo’s position on Gaza, said the Likud should stick to the formula for peace and Palestinian autonomy worked out at Camp David by his father, the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
The younger Begin said that the Gaza first idea, meant, in effect, “abandoning Gaza.”
Begin was equally scathing in his rejection of calls by hard-line Likudniks to abandon Camp David and the entire autonomy package.
In these positions, Begin is essentially articulating the position long held by former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who is increasingly taking on the role of party elder statesman.
Political observers say the Likud is plainly casting about for the right positions to take in its opposition to the government and during the quickened pace of the peace diplomacy.
The ongoing closure of the administered territories, imposed to curb Palestinian attacks on Israelis, has put the Likud in a sort of quandary.
While Likud politicians are pleased with the government’s tough stance against the Palestinians, which is widely supported by the public, they are concerned that the closure is a step toward the eventual Israeli disengagement from the territories.
Some Likud strategists have suggested that the party focus instead on the issue of returning the Golan Heights to Syria, a move many Israelis are against.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s own position on the Golan is unclear. And a considerable number of those within the Labor Party are uncomfortable with the notion of total withdrawal, even in return for full peace and normalization with Syria.
The problem with this approach is that it would effectively mean abandoning the fight to retain “Judea and Samaria,” which has always been a higher ideological priority for the Likud than holding onto the Golan.
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