Defectors Block Peres Cabinet : Hopes Dim, Labor Gets More Time

Labor Party leader Shimon Peres failed to form a new Israeli government today in a blow to prospects for early peace talks with the Palestinians.

Two religious deputies humiliated Peres by walking out of his coalition just before the Knesset began a special session due to approve a Labor-led Cabinet to replace caretaker Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s right-wing Likud government.

The defections left Labor with only 59 supporters against Likud’s 60 in the 120-seat Knesset.

The Knesset (parliament) adjourned a chaotic session without endorsing a new government, leaving Shamir, 74, in power.

“I have informed the speaker of the house that because of developments in the last hours I am incapable of presenting a government today and I will do it at a later date,” Peres said.

President Chaim Herzog later agreed to give Peres two more weeks to seek a majority. But political commentators said his prospects appear slim, casting doubt on the 66-year-old Labor leader’s political future.

Labor might be forced to return to a national unity government with Likud, and former Labor Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, 67, could emerge as a compromise candidate for prime minister.

As Peres left the president’s residence he told reporters: “I am convinced that if Israel does not open a peace process, we will lose the diplomatic initiative and create the conditions for a hostile initiative.”

Rabbis Avraham Verdiger and Eliezer Mizrahi said they could not back a Peres government dependent on Arab deputies who support the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Verdiger resigned from the Knesset and Mizrahi quit the ultra-orthodox Agudat Israel Party, the only religious faction to side with Labor against Likud. Mizrahi said he would stay in parliament and vote against a Peres cabinet.

After a tumultuous debate in which Jewish and Arab members traded abuse, with hapless Speaker Dov Shilansky incapable of maintaining order, the session adjourned. It is not due to meet again until the regular summer session opens on May 7.

“Today’s production was a disgrace to the Knesset. Democracy was turned into a kind of farce,” Likud caucus leader Sarah Doron said on Israel Radio.

Labor opened Israel’s latest political crisis in March by walking out of a 15-month-old national unity government with Likud over Shamir’s firing of Peres and his refusal to accept U.S. proposals for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Cairo.

Parliament passed an unprecedented “no confidence” motion in Shamir’s rump cabinet on March 15, and Herzog asked Peres five days later to form a government.

The Labor leader informed the president last week that he had a majority after embittered former Likud minister Avraham Sharir crossed the floor to Labor.

Likud meanwhile worked to persuade the New York-based Lubavitch religious sect, which opposes territorial concessions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, to instruct its followers in Agudat Israel not to support Peres.

The religious Shas party, whose five abstentions brought down Shamir, proposed today that a new national unity coalition be formed in which the premiership would rotate between Labor and Likud.