Compromise From Little-Known Leader Saved Coalition : Small Parties Key to Israel Accord

The man who emerges on top from the latest Israeli government crisis may be neither Prime Minister Shimon Peres nor his antagonist, Trade Minister Ariel Sharon, but rather a previously little-known Moroccan Jew who years ago gave up his dream of becoming a pilot to study for the rabbinate.

Interior Minister Yitzhak Peretz, 47, leader of the fledgling Sephardic Torah Guardians Party, or Shas, successfully mediated the conflict and underlined the enormous power the country’s small religious parties enjoy over the senior partners in the fragile ruling coalition.

A full-bearded man whose ramrod posture and ever-present black bowler make him look taller and more severe than he really is, Peretz established his own and his infant party’s coming of political age during the two-day confrontation.

‘Clarification’ of Remarks

The crisis ended early Friday when the two principals accepted a written “clarification” of several inflammatory remarks made Monday by Sharon for which Peres had threatened to dismiss him from the government.

In a final bit of crisis business Friday morning, Labor Alignment leader Peres and his principal coalition partner, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, leader of the Likud Bloc, “agreed to disagree” over the prime minister’s insistence that if a similar situation arises in the future, he will summarily fire the offending minister no matter what his party affiliation.

Beneath the public posturing, however, political insiders here said Friday that what really ended the crisis was the refusal of Peretz and other religious party leaders to back Peres in what was essentially a bid to force Likud out of the coalition and to form a new, narrow-based government. That refusal, which apparently came as a surprise to Labor strategists, forced Peres to accept a compromise with Sharon.

The impetus for Peres to scuttle the so-called “national unity” government he now heads is a unique “rotation” clause in the coalition agreement that requires him to switch jobs with Shamir next October.

Warned Against Firing

Likud leaders warned that if Peres fired their political colleague Sharon, they would leave the coalition.

As late as Thursday afternoon, Peres publicly challenged Sharon to repudiate a half dozen of his remarks critical of the prime minister and his management of the Middle East peace process. At a meeting with Likud activists, Sharon condemned Peres’ peace overtures to Jordan, accused him of negotiating secretly with the Arabs and suggested that Peres had refused to rule out inclusion of the Palestine Liberation Organization in peace negotiations.

But Sharon’s “clarification” statement appeared to fall far short of the unequivocal retractions Peres had demanded on six points. Sharon denied having made one of the remarks, said he already had apologized for two others and was misunderstood on a fourth.

On the fifth point, Sharon said he accepted Peres’ pledge that he would exclude the PLO. And on the last point, Sharon said he accepted the Cabinet’s refusal to consider his proposal for military action against PLO bases in Jordan.

Peres Adviser Upset

And while Labor politicians depicted the showdown as a victory for Peres, at least one of the prime minister’s key advisers was so upset at the turn of events that he refused to discuss it.

“I know for sure that when (the Labor party leadership) debated (the situation) Tuesday night, they relied on the assumption that the religious parties would stay with them, which proved to be wrong,” Likud parliamentarian Ehud Olmert asserted.

A key aide to Peretz said in an interview that Labor had misread a steady improvement in relations between the two parties as evidence that the Sephardic party would be ready to join a narrow, Labor-led government.

However, the aide said, “the truth is that Shas does not favor a narrow government.” The current stalemate between the larger parties gives Shas and the other religious parties more leverage to pursue their interests.

Shas was formed only a little over a year ago by Sephardic Jews of Middle East and African origin, who were often dissatisfied with what they saw as domination by Ashkenazic Jews of European origin in the more established religious parties.

Headed by Neophytes

An ultra-Orthodox party headed by political neophytes, Shas surprised nearly everybody by winning more than 3% of the vote in July, 1984, elections and earning four seats in the 120-member Knesset (Parliament).

Sharon talked Shas into a political alliance with Likud, and Peretz was awarded the job of interior minister in the 14-month-old national unity government.

Acquaintances describe Peretz as an accomplished soccer player and said he gave up a youthful dream of becoming an air force pilot in order to get a higher religious education. He became chief Sephardic rabbi of Raananna, a town of about 25,000 north of Tel Aviv, at age 22.

He learned his mediating skills in his work as a rabbi, an aide said. “That’s the job of a rabbi--to be a mediator between people.”

As a politician, his principal interest is in religious issues. One example, ironically, is a current campaign to forbid Sabbath soccer games at a new stadium near Tel Aviv.