Likud’s Central Committee will convene on Feb. 7 for what may or may not turn out to be a showdown over Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s peace policies.
The date was set at a brief meeting this week between Shamir and one of his most outspoken critics in Likud, Industry and Trade Minister Ariel Sharon.
Disagreements over procedure remain to be settled, however. Shamir wants a single vote of confidence in his leadership, expressing support for the way he has been conducting diplomacy with the United States over the proposed Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.
The internal opposition, led by Sharon, David Levy and Yitzhak Moda’i, is urging a series of votes in hope of winning a substantial number of delegates, perhaps a majority, to its point of view.
The three Likud ministers take a sharply negative view of the American peace efforts and Shamir’s partly positive response to them.
Although it was Shamir who launched the peace initiative last spring by proposing Palestinian elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, his plan was sparse on details.
The United States has tried to flesh it out by arranging an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, which would be held under Egyptian auspices. The dialogue would establish ground rules for the elections.
Shamir accepted U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s five-point proposal for the dialogue, but is still seeking American assurances on a number of matters. Among them is a guarantee that the Palestine Liberation Organization will have no role, direct or indirect, in the process.
The Sharon-Levy-Moda’i camp has been leading a rear-guard action against Shamir’s election plan from its outset. Last summer, the trio won the Central Committee’s endorsement of a series of constraints, which Shamir was bound to observe.
Levy, who is minister of construction and housing and holds the rank of deputy premier, charged Thursday that Shamir was circumventing the will of the Likud rank and file, as expressed by the 2,000-plus-member Central Committee.
He said there was need for “machinery enabling it to monitor its own decisions.”
Shamir’s supporters have warned that a standoff in the Central Committee could split the party, resulting in Likud’s loss of national power.
But Moda’i, who is minister of economics and planning, declared Thursday, “We won’t be threatened.”
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