Unity on Latest Peace Proposals Elusive As Israel Awaits Shultz

With Secretary of State George Shultz’s visit to the Middle East less than a week away, the Labor Party and Likud remain at loggerheads over how to advance the peace process.

The coalition partners have broken no ground in their weeks of discussion, and in fact seem more entrenched than ever in their respective positions.

Laborite Ezer Weizman, a minister without portfolio, said Thursday that the Cabinet must work out a unified Israeli position toward the latest American peace proposals before Shultz arrives here.

“We have to have an Israeli position, not a Shamir position and a Peres position. We are either a government, or two governments,” Weizman said.

Premier Yitzhak Shamir, leader of the Likud bloc, vehemently opposes any sort of international forum as an umbrella for peace negotiations and rejects the American idea of speeding up the autonomy process for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and starting negotiations over the permanent status of the territories before the end of this year.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, the Labor Party leader, has welcomed the American initiative, though he objects to some of the ideas advanced by Washington. He strongly favors an international “opening” or “event” to launch direct negotiations between Israel and its Arab adversaries.

PARTIES TRADE ACCUSATIONS

The latest Labor-Likud standoff occurred in the Knesset Wednesday. Ehud Olmert of Likud accused Peres of encouraging Foreign Ministry officials to claim wherever they go that the Likud wing of the government does not want peace, while those who support an international conference are for peace.

Peres replied that he and Shamir were obliged to work in conjunction on the issue, but Shamir was undercutting him. Shamir has made the same charges against Peres.

The foreign minister said the basis of all peace plans is United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which are an integral part of the Camp David accords. Shamir insists on sticking to the Camp David accords as the basis for all future negotiations.

Peres reminded him that the pertinent resolutions refer to “withdrawal from territories,” which means territorial compromise, fiercely opposed by Likud. The resolutions also invoke the idea of an international conference, Peres claimed.

The foreign minister said he was in favor of territorial compromise in return for peace, “but not all the territories.”

Likud responded that Peres’ proposal to withdraw from the Gaza Strip is a “general surrender” and talk of concessions only encourages Arab unrest in the territories.

According to Likud, the Arabs accept the idea of “Gaza first,” but would then demand the Wadi Ara area in Israel where local youths, for the first time, joined West Bank stone-throwers last month.

Peres, addressing a meeting of the United Kibbutz Movement, said he suggested withdrawing from the Gaza Strip “not because I’m afraid of rocks and stones, but because I’m scared of the demographic statistics,” which show a high Arab birth rate.

Shamir told the Jewish Agency Board of Governors on Thursday that he stood by his objections to an international conference and to any shortening of the autonomy timetable.

“Any attempt to force the pace and shorten the period would be detrimental to the very essence of the agreement,” he said, referring to the Camp David accords.

He said he opposed an international conference “because its nature and composition will, we are convinced, be counterproductive and enable the Soviet Union to play a role in this region.”