Shamir Forms Far-Right Coalition to Rule Israel

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir formed the most right-wing coalition in Israeli history Friday and said its top priority would be Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union.

After protracted last-minute wrangling, seven right-wing and religious parties and three independent members of the Knesset signed a coalition accord that calls for expanded Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The accord came 12 weeks after the dovish Labor Party brought down a national unity government over Shamir’s refusal to accept U.S. proposals for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The new government, which claims the backing of 62 members of the 120-seat Knesset, will seek a vote of confidence Monday. But political sources said the coalition was highly unstable and unlikely to last long.

Once it takes office, Shamir could quickly become a prisoner of hawks in his own party, of ultraorthodox rabbis, and what one aide described as “right-wing crazies.”

The pressures may drive him to seek early elections or a renewed unity government with Labor, political sources said.

“It’s very difficult if you only have a narrow majority and you can be blackmailed on every parliamentary vote. There will be three crises a week in this coalition,” a seasoned Cabinet official said.

The unpopularity of the new government, which opinion polls showed only 14% of Israelis wanted, could also increase public pressure for a reform of an electoral system that gives fringe parties the balance of power.

“Whatever government is formed, it is clear that Israel’s political system is rotten to the core,” political commentator Yeshayahu Ben-Porat wrote in the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth. The newspaper Maariv, in an editorial, lambasted the country’s politicians as “pigs, pimps and prostitutes.”

An exhausted-looking Shamir, 74, toasted his new coalition as “a national government that will conduct affairs of state during a tough period with many dangers.”

But even after signing the pact, religious parties continued to haggle for control of the ministries of religion and education.

“The government’s main effort will be on the most important matter in our lives today--the mass immigration flowing into the country and the absorption (of immigrants),” Shamir said.

Israel expects up to 250,000 Soviet Jews to arrive this year and Jewish Agency officials disclosed last week that about 1.1 million Soviet Jews had received immigration visas.

If it holds, the Cabinet will be dominated by opponents of peace talks with the Palestinians and advocates of increased Jewish settlement in the occupied territories.

Political commentators said it could set Israel on a collision course with the United States, its guardian ally.

“Barring a miracle, Shamir will find himself in direct conflict with the United States, the Soviet Union, Europe, the Palestinians and the Arab world,” diplomatic commentator Akiva Eldar wrote in the Haaretz newspaper.

The coalition’s policy guidelines said the new government would work to “strengthen, expand and develop” Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, the biggest source of friction between Israel and Washington.

“Settlement in all parts of the land of Israel is the right of the Jewish people and an inseparable part of national security,” the document said.

Shamir said he had not finalized Cabinet posts, but sources in his Likud party said a troika of hard-liners--David Levy, Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Modai--would receive the key ministries of foreign affairs, housing and finance.

Sharon, architect of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the most controversial figure in modern Israeli politics, will have overall control of immigration.

Dubbed the “constraints ministers,” the trio forced Shamir last July to accept hard-line restrictions on his government’s peace initiative for Palestinian elections leading to self-rule in the occupied territories.

The new policy guidelines reaffirmed that plan, but added one key constraint--ruling out Palestinian elections or autonomy in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.