Knesset Kills 3 Bills Backed by Shamir’s Allies

The Israeli Parliament rejected three controversial special-interest bills Wednesday in a stormy session that could weaken Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in critical political and foreign policy areas.

Two of the bills, opposed as discriminatory by American Jewish leaders as well as many Israelis, would have given the Orthodox rabbis of Israel new authority over conversions to Judaism.

The third would have granted amnesty to members of a Jewish underground group imprisoned for murdering three Palestinian students, maiming two West Bank mayors and committing other terrorist acts against Arabs between 1980 and 1984.

All three measures were supported by two small parties allied with Prime Minister Shamir’s rightist Likud Bloc--the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, also known as Sephardic Torah Guardians, which has four seats in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament; and the nationalistic, pro-settlement Tehiya (Revival) party, with five seats.

Shamir needs both parties to block an effort by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and his centrist Labor Alignment to force new elections over the issue of an international conference on peace in the Middle East. Members of Shas and Tehiya parties have threatened to bolt to the other side unless Shamir helps bring about the passage of special-interest legislation they favor.

Likud and Labor are joined in an uneasy “national unity” coalition as the result of inconclusive 1984 parliamentary elections, but Peres has made no secret of his desire to take the peace issue to the people before the next scheduled elections, in November of 1988.

Shamir Votes for Bills

Shamir personally voted for all three proposals, but several of his Likud colleagues did not, and this ensured the measures’ defeat. Labor is expected to cite the prime minister’s failure to deliver in its effort to drive a wedge between Likud and these small but critical allied parties.

Many political analysts believe that the small parties are bluffing in threatening to back Peres’ call for early elections.

Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz, the leader of Shas, indicated Wednesday that he is ready to give Shamir another chance to push through legislation expanding the Orthodox religious leaders’ authority to decide who is a Jew.

Law of Return

One of the bills defeated Wednesday--the vote was 62-53, with two abstentions--would have amended Israel’s so-called Law of Return so that people converted to Judaism by Reform or Conservative rabbis would not automatically qualify for Israeli citizenship upon request.

Another bill, designed to accomplish the same thing, would have amended a 1927 British law in such a way that Israel’s Orthodox chief rabbi would have been empowered to rule on the legitimacy of all conversions, whether carried out here or abroad. The vote on that proposal was 60-56.

The proposal that Rabbi Peretz now wants Shamir to bring to a vote would give Israel’s Orthodox Rabbinical Courts the right to rule on who is Jewish.

Amnesty Bill Fails

The amnesty bill, favored by Tehiya, was defeated earlier in the day by a vote of 69-40.

The leftist Mapam party criticized Shamir for voting in favor of amnesty. A Mapam spokesman said, “We see this step by the prime minister as giving legitimization to those who commit acts of terror just because they are Jewish.”

Mapam said it will propose a parliamentary motion of no confidence in the government next week.