Shamir Retreats, Ending Crisis : Won’t Fire Science Minister

Defusing a political crisis that threatened the coalition government, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir today canceled his decision to fire Science Minister Ezer Weizman for alleged contacts with the PLO.

In a political compromise, Weizman agreed to quit the decision-making inner Cabinet. The announcement came after Shamir summoned Weizman today.

The agreement between Weizman and Shamir ended two days of intense efforts to save the coalition of the conservative Likud bloc that Shamir heads and the center-left Labor Party of which Weizman is a senior member.

The crisis was the worst to shake a Likud-Labor alliance in six years and concerned a major issue that has split the nation--how to resolve Israel’s festering conflict with Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

On Sunday, Shamir gave Weizman written notice that he was fired as of today because of contacts with the PLO in which Weizman allegedly divulged secret Israeli strategy that he learned in meetings of the 12-member inner Cabinet.

Weizman told reporters after the five-minute meeting that Shamir had not confronted him with evidence of the PLO contacts.

“Firstly, the crisis is over. Secondly, all attempts to say I am guilty or not I don’t accept because for me guilt is a matter of being brought to court or not,” Weizman told reporters.

Weizman, 65, a former defense minister who defected from Likud, said Shamir took back the dismissal letter.

The arrangement was worked out before the meeting and finalized in Shamir’s office “with smiles and a handshake,” Weizman said, adding he will go ahead with a planned trip to Moscow on Wednesday.

Under the compromise, Weizman will remain science minister in the overall, 26-member Cabinet but will no longer sit in sessions of the inner Cabinet, where government strategy is decided.

Eliakim Rubinstein, the Cabinet secretary and a top Shamir aide, said Shamir will consider restoring Weizman to the inner Cabinet in 18 months.

“The prime minister stressed to Mr. Weizman the seriousness with which he viewed all contacts with terrorist organizations, leading them the PLO,” Rubinstein said.

Labor had demanded that Weizman not be ousted without a chance to see and respond to evidence against him. Labor leaders were split, however, over how far to go in defending Weizman, who has openly advocated talks with the PLO despite government policy against any dealings with the organization.

In Baghdad, Iraq, a Palestine Liberation Organization official said Shamir had sent a message to PLO leader Yasser Arafat a few months ago on a possible settlement of the Mideast crisis.

“I wonder why Shamir is making a lot of noise about Weizman’s contacts with the PLO when he and other senior Israeli politicians made similar contacts,” said Bassam Abu Sharif, Arafat’s political adviser.

Abu Sharif, who is known to have contacted Israeli officials on behalf of the PLO, declined to reveal the precise contents of the message or say who was the intermediary.