2 Defectors Stall Peres’ Move for Israeli Coalition

The drive by Labor Party leader Shimon Peres to form a government dedicated to peace talks stalled Wednesday when two politicians from a religious party unexpectedly abandoned his coalition.

Peres was granted 15 more days by President Chaim Herzog, Israel’s largely ceremonial head of state, to piece together a parliamentary majority. The reprieve means that the back-room dealing that set off wide public indignation will continue as Peres tries to change the minds of lawmakers opposed to his leadership.

A downcast Peres left the presidential residence warning of dire consequences should Israel fail to move ahead on an American-sponsored peace plan.

“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,” he said. Caretaker Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, leader of the rival Likud Party, opposes the U.S. plan.

The surprise defections robbed Peres of a bare 61-59 majority in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, where a vote of confidence was postponed. The televised Knesset session was riotous, with members trading insults and debating whether it was proper for Arabs (half a dozen support Peres) to hold a parliamentary balance of power in a Jewish state.

Peres said of the defectors, “They can change their minds, but what pained me was that they did it this morning.”

His grim demeanor contrasted sharply with the broad smile that he flashed a month ago when he successfully engineered a no-confidence vote against Shamir.

Herzog’s decision to grant Peres an extension was sharply attacked by members of Shamir’s Likud Party who feel that the caretaker prime minister instead should be given a shot at forming a government.

“I’m enraged by the president’s decision. The only justified and legitimate decision was to grant Mr. Shamir (time) to form a government,” said Tsahi Hanegbi, a Likud member of the Knesset.

Peres has pledged to open talks with Palestinians under a plan worked out by U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III. The plan brought deep divisions to the surface in Israel over what to do with the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and their 1.7 million Palestinian residents. Shamir has said that Israel needs the territory to make room for new Soviet immigrants.

The Likud-Labor national unity government collapsed last month over the issue of peace talks.

Going into last weekend, Peres appeared to hold the advantage. In the three weeks since being named prime minister-designate, he had fashioned a slim majority led by Labor and supported by leftist and Arab-based parties, a discontented member of Likud and the religious Agudat Israel party.

His majority evaporated Wednesday when two members of Agudat Israel made sudden turnarounds: One resigned from the Knesset, and the other broke away to form his own one-man anti-Peres party.

There had been a spate of reports over the weekend that Menachem Schneerson, an aged rabbi who leads Habad, a Hasidic sect of Judaism, ordered two followers in Agudat to oppose Peres and rob the Labor leader of a majority.

Schneerson, who lives in Brooklyn and refuses to visit Israel because he views the state as a premature manifestation of the Messiah’s coming, is said to oppose Peres’ plans to offer occupied land in return for peace with the Arabs. Despite Schneerson’s position, the defections were surprising. Agudat’s policy-making Council of Sages had come out firmly for Peres and, usually, the council’s word is law for Agudat members.

“Since the existence of Agudat Israel, no one who represents Agudat Israel would do something against the decision of the Council of Sages,” said a stunned Menachem Porush, leader of the party.

One of the dropouts, Rabbi Avraham Verdiger, said he could not support Peres because his majority relied on the backing of half a dozen Arabs in the Knesset.

“It is impossible for us to give a hand to establishing a government that does not have a Jewish majority,” Verdiger said.

That reasoning brought charges of racism from the Labor and left-wing side of the Knesset aisle. Likud and rightist politicians responded that the Arabs are supporters of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leader, Yasser Arafat. Last week, Arafat told Italian officials in Rome that he had “ordered” Arab Knesset delegates to back Peres.

On Wednesday, Geula Cohen, a right-wing Knesset member, sparked an uproar when she called the Arabs “Arafat’s agents in the Knesset.”

“I am happy that a government was not established based on splinters of splinter and on anti-Zionists,” added Yoash Tsiddin, a member of a party that favors annexing the West Bank and Gaza.

Ran Cohen, of the leftist Citizens’ Rights Party, countered: “It is not dignified that Arab or Jew, left or right, don’t know how to live in equality.”

In the aftermath of the canceled vote on the proposed government, the horizon for Peres is littered with uncertainties.

He will probably be able to recoup one of the two Agudat defectors because Verdiger, who resigned from the Knesset, will be replaced by someone likely to vote for Labor. The other rabbi remains, leaving Peres and Shamir in a 60-60 deadlock.

Shas, a six-member religious party, is mulling over prospects of changing horses--again. The party’s votes were instrumental in bringing down Shamir during the no-confidence vote, but it rushed back to his side to oppose Peres. Its differences with Peres are based on Labor’s secular leanings and the fact that he was backed by Agudat, a religious rival. Shas is pushing for a national unity government in which Labor and Likud would rotate in the prime minister’s slot.

There are still Likud dissidents available. However, their demands for a payoff may be so high--such as important Cabinet posts and secure positioning in future elections--that neither Labor nor Likud may be willing to pay the price.

Peres may face pressure from within his own party to give way to rival Yitzhak Rabin who, because he is more hawkish than Peres, might be able to woo hard-line religious holdouts.

The unresolved political crisis is sure to ignite renewed calls for electoral reform. Reformists view the present system, which grants Knesset seats to parties who win just over 1% of the vote nationwide, as unwieldy. Underlying the protest is the feeling that religious parties, whose members generally avoid military service, are gaining too much influence in government.