Labor Party Breaks Off Talks on Israel Coalition With Likud

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Tuesday that his Labor Party has broken off talks on forming a government with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s rightist Likud.

Meanwhile, North American Jewish leaders warned Shamir of a split between world Jewry and Israel if he enacts a controversial amendment to Israeli law limiting those who can call themselves Jews.

Religious parties, strengthened in the inconclusive Nov. 1 elections, have agreed to back Shamir as prime minister if Likud supports an amendment barring non-Orthodox Jewish converts from automatically becoming Israeli citizens. In the parliamentary elections, Shamir’s Likud narrowly defeated Labor, winning 40 Knesset seats. Labor took 39 seats.

The amended law would grant automatic citizenship only to those born of a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism by Orthodox rabbis. It would deny citizenship to tens of thousands of Americans converted by less strict non-Orthodox rabbis.

Labor Party officials, including party leader Peres, decided to end coalition talks after Likud refused to meet Labor’s demands, said Police Minister Chaim Bar-Lev, a member of the Labor negotiating team.

“We didn’t get satisfactory answers . . . (on) our power in the government,” Bar-Lev told state-run Israel Radio. “Therefore, there is no point for us to go any further. The next step is (to) start organizing our faction in the Knesset (as) the opposition.”

The move indicated that Labor leaders will form the opposition after sharing power with Likud since 1984 in a so-called national unity government.

After North American Jewish leaders met with Shamir, four Israeli legislators--three from religious parties and one from Likud--put discussion of the conversion issue on the parliamentary agenda, although no date was set for a vote.

“There is a tremendous sense of pain and anguish (among world Jews), a fear of being disenfranchised, of being made second-class citizens,” said Shoshana Cardin, head of the delegation of American and Canadian Jewish leaders. “The (disputed amendment on) ‘Who is a Jew’ (should) not be used as a political football.”

The leaders of North American Jews, the largest Jewish community in the world and staunch supporters of Israel politically and financially, said the issue affects millions of Jews abroad who perceive the proposed change as a rejection of their non-Orthodox way of life.