Likud, Labor Parties Agree on Plan for Anti-PLO Israeli Government

The right-wing Likud Party and the left-leaning Labor Party agreed today on guidelines for a new government that would ban talks with the PLO, setting Israel on a collision course with the United States.

The two major parties appeared headed for a national unity government similar to that of the last four years, but hard-liners in Yitzhak Shamir’s party made a last-ditch effort to overturn the agreement.

Ariel Sharon, Likud’s former defense minister, led the opposition. He told about 2,000 party delegates that Labor was an unfit partner because it favored withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and some of its members approved of talking to the Palestine Liberation Organization.

“In Labor, they say they must speak to the PLO. Dear friends, this is not our position,” Sharon told the meeting.

Shamir said, however, that if his party did not approve the agreement he would go to President Chaim Herzog and give up the mandate he was given to form a new government. Such a move would throw Israel’s political system into a state of confusion.

Herzog had given Shamir, whose party slightly edged out Labor in Nov. 1 elections, until next Monday to form a new government.

Labor Cabinet ministers approved the coalition pact today. The agreement will be submitted Wednesday to the party’s 1,000-member central committee.

Labor leader and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said formation of the new coalition would spell defeat for the proposed “Who is a Jew” legislation that was vehemently opposed by U.S. Jews.

That prospect touched off wrangling between Shamir and the four religious parties, who originally demanded the legislation and now threaten to stay out of the coalition.

Shamir hopes to include the religious parties to make it more difficult for Labor to bring down the government should an impasse occur.

Yitzhak Peretz of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party accused Shamir of breaking his pledges. “He promised us and signed an agreement to help change the Law of Return,” he said.

The Law of Return grants automatic Israeli citizenship to all Jews, and the amendment would require Orthodox approval of all conversions to Judaism. U.S. Jews feel the legislation will divide the Jewish community.

Shamir said Labor and Likud were united in standing up to what he called the “common danger”--Arab demands for creation of an independent Palestinian state.

“There is a common danger to all of us, the establishment of a Palestinian state. Both Labor and Likud see it as a danger, and the government will deal with it in a unified effort,” he said.