Early Spring Voting Urged by Israeli Foreign Minister

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said today that six weeks of riots in the occupied territories have “paralyzed” the government and urged that Israel hold early elections this spring.

A second day of calm was reported in the occupied territories, where at least 36 Palestinians have been killed since the violence began Dec. 8.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, the foreign minister’s right-wing rival in the tenuous “national unity” coalition, said elections must wait until order is restored in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“When we are under attack, it wouldn’t be good to go into an election war,” Shamir declared. He also said the United States and Egypt should help revive talks on autonomy for the occupied territories as outlined in the 1978 Camp David accords that led to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of March, 1979.

He said early elections would “weaken our standing in the eyes of the Arabs and is liable to damage us.”

Elections are scheduled for November, but Peres said: “I think we can do an election in 90 days at minimal cost. We cannot leave Israel without a political decision. . . . Whoever says there is no hurry needs to check his eyesight.”

Under a 1984 coalition agreement, power is shared by Labor and its ideological rival, Shamir’s right-wing Likud Bloc. Neither has a parliamentary majority, and fringe parties hold the balance.