Peres Keeps Hope Alive for Heading Israel Government : Labor Leader Picks Up Support of Ultra-Orthodox Party, May Have 60 Votes in Knesset

One month after national elections, archrivals Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres remained deadlocked Thursday in their exhausting quest to fashion a new Israeli government, but Peres kept his ambitions of becoming prime minister alive through an improbable alliance with a small ultrareligious party.

Peres, rebuffed Wednesday by his own Labor Party on the question of a broad coalition with Shamir’s Likud Party, picked up the support of the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Israel Party, which has five seats in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, and which had long been supportive of Shamir.

5 Seats Pledged to Labor

According to estimates by political analysts, center-left Labor could count on 60 votes in the 120-member Knesset, while rightist Likud and its allies had 58 votes. Both sides thus were too weak to carve a workable majority out of 15 fractious parties--but each was strong enough to block the other.

Agudat Israel pledged Peres its five seats Thursday in exchange for the prospect of strong Cabinet representation and Peres’ promise to submit to Labor’s leadership its call for change in the definition of “who is a Jew.” Labor also has won the endorsement of three small Arab parties.

The two undecided votes belonged to the Torah Flag Party, an ultra-Orthodox faction that has wavered between Labor and Likud--and even is undecided on a Labor-Likud alliance of the sort that has ruled Israel since 1984.

The deadlock could force Labor and Likud into trying again to form a coalition, which Labor might accept if Likud continued the practice of equal control of the government and a rotation in prime ministers.

“Why not?” Peres replied when a reporter asked if he thought he could form a government.

Shamir, for his part, said Thursday he still hoped to be able to present a new government to the Knesset by Monday, the deadline set by President Chaim Herzog, a Labor Party member. If Shamir does not have the votes by then, he may ask Herzog for another 21 days. Herzog could keep Shamir as prime minister-designate or turn instead to Peres.

“If Herzog asks Shimon Peres to form a government, all the cards will change. Everything will be dealt anew,” Labor Party secretary general Uzi Baram said.

In national elections Nov. 1, Likud won 40 Knesset seats and Labor 39. Initially, Shamir turned to right-wing and religious parties as would-be partners in a narrow coalition.

But under heavy pressure from American Jews angered by the Orthodox parties’ attempts to exclude Reform and Conservative converts from automatic Israeli citizenship, Shamir turned to Labor in a bid to woo it into what would have been another broad coalition.

Rejecting the proposal, young Labor leaders upstaged Peres in a surprise vote in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night.

Agudat, smarting from what it considered Shamir’s double dealing, defected to Labor in a formal, written agreement Thursday that is certain to invite American criticism of Peres for compromising on the “Who is a Jew?” question. Earlier this week, Peres told visiting American Jews that he agrees the issue has no place on Israel’s national political agenda.