Three Likud ministers who oppose Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s peace initiative reiterated Sunday that they will challenge it when the party’s Central Committee meets in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.
If they cannot convince the nearly 2,000 delegates to reject the plan outright, they will insist that the text be amended with safeguards against what the ministers perceive to be dire consequences for Israel if it is implemented intact.
The Likud holdouts are Ariel Sharon, the minister of industry and trade, and Deputy Premier David Levy, the minister of construction and housing, both from Shamir’s Herut faction; as well as Minister of Economic Planning Yitzhak Moda’i, leader of Likud’s Liberal Party wing.
They have not yielded in their resistance to the plan since it was approved two months ago by majorities in the Cabinet and the Knesset. The initiative also has won support from the United States and qualified backing from the European Community.
The ministers oppose, in particular, Shamir’s plan for Palestinian elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to choose representatives with whom Israel would negotiate.
The negotiations would be for a five-year period of self-rule in the territories, and negotiations after the third year to determine the final status of those areas.
Sharon especially has railed against the plan, which he says he is convinced will result in the establishment of a Palestinian state and the redivision of Jerusalem.
He and his two fellow ministers repeated Sunday that Likud’s policy-making forum must, at the very least, insert safeguards into the plan.
A ‘PUBLIC RELATIONS STUNT’?
Their minimum demand is that the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, be completely suppressed before any political process can begin.
They also insist that Israel’s sovereignty over East Jerusalem must be reaffirmed and, accordingly, that East Jerusalem Arabs be excluded from voting in the proposed elections.
Finally, they are absolutely opposed to the idea of international supervision over the elections.
Shamir’s aides say he is not opposed to those policy points and is prepared to embrace them in his address to the Central Committee.
But Shamir has refused to alter the official text of his plan. He maintains that since the plan, as drafted, has won Cabinet and Knesset approval, it cannot be altered by the party forum.
But Sharon explained, in an article published Sunday in the mass-circulation Yediot Achronot, why the guarantees must be written into the text.
The article was clearly aimed at the Likud Central Committee members.
Shamir and his supporters “whisper into your ears that the plan is no more than a ‘gimmick’ really, a public relations stunt,” Sharon wrote.
“They add to it ringing public declarations that we will never forgo ‘a single inch’ of territory, that the East Jerusalem Arabs will not be granted the vote, that a PLO state will never arise.
“But none of these is included in the plan,” Sharon said. “They are merely proclamations — in the best case, illusions; in the worst, deliberate subterfuges.
“The U.S. Senate and administration relate solely to the official plan; they dismiss all and any additional public pronouncements,” he wrote. “The consequences of this plan will be determined solely by what is written in it.”
Sharon cited media reports that the Israeli left and the PLO itself are anxious to see the Shamir plan approved.
Meanwhile, Shamir has postponed a meeting with Sharon that had been scheduled for Sunday to reach agreement on an agenda for the Central Committee meeting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
