Two Party Leaders Trade Barbs, As Likelihood of Coalition Grows

Israel’s election campaign veered into the low road this week, as the leaders of the Labor Party and the Likud hurled personal invectives in the aftermath of a relatively restrained television debate between them Sunday.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is “the murderer of the truth,” Premier Yitzhak Shamir thundered at a Likud election rally Tuesday night, referring to his Laborite rival.

Peres has called Shamir a “murderer of peace.” In media interviews this week, Peres charged that Shamir was guilty of rabble-rousing, lies and campaign tactics that would be outlawed in any Western democracy.

The apparent personal bitterness between the two has political observers wondering how a viable government can be put together after the elections.

If the latest polls are correct, the race between the two major parties and the ideological blocs aligned with them is so close that the elections will produce a stalemate, as in 1984.

This means that neither Labor nor Likud will be able to form a narrow-based coalition of the left or right. In that case, they may have no choice but to repeat the 1984 unity government scenario that both parties detested.

But the pundits doubt that Shamir and Peres can any longer agree on a combined coalition.

Although both men insist their differences are ideological rather than personal, the bitterness between them is evident.

Shamir stated flatly during the debate that he does not wish to enter another unity arrangement. He accused Peres of disloyalty to the outgoing unity government.

But Shamir said he hoped to create a “broad government.” That was interpreted as a willingness to include the Labor Party, provided Peres is no longer its leader.

The Likud leader has discouraged such speculation, saying he does not distinguish between the Labor Party and the person who heads it. But sources close to the premier say he would like to drive a wedge between Peres and Labor’s tough-minded defense minister, Yitzhak Rabin.

Peres has said he would be willing to enter another coalition with Likud if there was no alternative. But his subsequent remarks about Shamir seemed to exclude that prospect.