Israeli Leaders Put Off Decision on Peace Talks

A showdown meeting on the Palestinian peace process produced no compromise Wednesday, and the Likud and Labor parties--Israel’s ruling coalition--postponed further deliberations until Sunday.

Top ministers of both parties, assembled as the so-called Inner Cabinet, met for more than two hours to consider a Labor demand for acceptance of an American formula to get the peace talks under way. Participants said that neither side changed its position.

Labor’s leader, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, has threatened to pull his party out of the coalition and bring down the 15-month-old government if Likud does not agree to the U.S. plan, which is designed to choose a Palestinian panel for preliminary peace talks. That threat was reaffirmed by Labor ministers after Wednesday’s meeting broke up.

Economics Minister Moshe Shahal of Labor said that “I don’t think there is a possibility to get Likud to change their minds” and that the government will fall if the American formula is not adopted.

Meanwhile, right-wing Israelis waving flags and torches crowded into the heart of Jerusalem, condemning statements made by President Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

“Stop Baker’s Anti-Semitism,” read one placard in the crowd, dominated by Jewish settlers from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. “Baker Wants to Exile Jews From the Land of the Bible,” said another.

Likud’s leader, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, said Sunday’s talks will continue until the issue is decided, Israel Radio reported.

A key dispute centers on a Baker formula that would permit the inclusion on a panel for the preliminary peace talks of some Palestinians deported from the occupied territories or who have an office or home in East Jerusalem.

Likud insists that deportees can be presumed to have contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which it refuses to deal with. It also asserts that placing East Jerusalem Palestinians on the panel would jeopardize the legitimacy of Israel’s annexation of that sector of the city, captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

Peres, speaking to reporters before Wednesday’s meeting, repeated his position that PLO influence over the peace talks is inevitable.

“Have they (Likud) just realized that the PLO is in the picture?” he said. “Don’t they know that the Americans are in touch with the PLO? Don’t they know that Egypt (the Palestinian interlocutor in arrangements) is in touch with the PLO? Don’t they know what has happened up to now?”