Shamir Cabinet Clears Parliament : Israel: The complicated coalition marks a turn to the right. It includes Likud, religious parties and hard-liners.

A few weeks ago, as Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was preparing to give a radio interview, a reporter asked him to test his voice in the microphone.

Rather than give a simple “Testing, one, two, three,” a witness recalled, Shamir said, “I’m here in the prime minister’s office and intend to be here for a long time.”

It was prophetic performance. On Monday, despite deep political divisions not only with rival groups but in his own Likud Party, Shamir won a vote of confidence in Israel’s Parliament and extended his stay in the prime minister’s post, where he has spent the last four years, as well as a spell in 1983-84.

In March, after becoming the first Israeli prime minister to fall in a no-confidence vote, Shamir was apparently headed for pasture at age 74. But with a dogged persistence, and a willingness to piece together a government he himself says he doesn’t want, he is once again in charge. This time, he heads a coalition of right-wing and religious parties with which he shares ideological, if not personal, rapport.

After six hours of speeches that put on display the deep disagreements in Israel over the issue of peace with Palestinians, the 120-member Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, gave Shamir a 62-57 vote of support, with one abstention.

Shamir’s margin was built on a coalition of his own Likud, three parties further to the right and three religious parties--plus a crossover vote from the rival Labor Party and a holdout religious party opposed to Shamir. The vote ended three months in which Shamir ruled with a minority, Likud-led government as a caretaker prime minister.

Unlike the previous, unity government that fell when the Labor Party pulled out, Shamir’s new coalition is dominated by parties commited to the concept of the “Land of Israel.” This is the contention that Israel must not be bound by its present frontiers but expanded to include the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, home to 1.7 million Palestinians.

The new government faces a wealth of problems. The numbers of Soviet immigrants arriving in Israel increases monthly; government officials estimate that about 150,000 will arrive this year alone. Little has been done to provide housing and jobs for the influx. Shamir has made settling the newcomers the first priority of his government.

The 30-month-old uprising in Gaza and the West Bank occupies the mind and resources of the country’s military authorities, and there is no end in sight. Shamir pledged to subdue the Palestinians.

Relations with the United States, Israel’s most important ally and financial benefactor, are uneasy.

Shamir has rejected Secretary of State James A. Baker III’s plan to get talks with Palestinians under way, and his government has committed itself to build more settlements in the occupied territories in defiance of Washington’s wishes.

In his speech to the Knesset, Shamir said Monday that good relations with the United States are a “cornerstone” of Israeli policy. However, he criticized the Bush Administration for maintaining contact with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which wants to set up a Palestinian state on the disputed land.

He went on to reject proposals that Israel give up control of the occupied lands although the land-for-peace formula is the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict favored by Washington. Such a surrender, Shamir argued, would open the way to invasions by hostile Arab neighbors.

His new government includes strong-willed personalities, some of whom are aiming to win Shamir’s job in the future. Even his supporters wonder how long the new partnership can last.

“We may not have to evaluate the first 100 days of this government,” quipped a Likud official, “Just the first 100 hours.”

His new foreign minister, David Levy, opposed Baker’s peace proposal and campaigned to undermine Shamir in Likud when it appeared that he might reach a compromise on it. Ariel Sharon, a leading hawk who is the new housing minister, also opposed Baker and campaigned to wrest control of the party from Shamir.

He campaigned to be defense minister, but Shamir named Moshe Arens, a loyal protege.

After the no-confidence vote in March, Labor’s dovish Peres failed to form a left-center government dedicated to holding talks with Palestinians. Given a chance to form a government, Shamir patiently waited out a six-week deadline period and last Friday, on the very last day, lined up agreements with allies.

The Labor Party, preparing to take up the role of opposition, showed no signs of offering Shamir a honeymoon. Peres told the Knesset that the new government dooms Israel to turmoil.

Peres pointed out that Shamir’s two-seat majority in the Knesset depends on two parties that want to annex the West Bank and Gaza, another that wants to expel Arabs and members of Likud who want to settle tens of thousands of Israelis in the occupied lands.

“It is a government of sadness. We prefer to be an opposition that supports peace than a right-wing government that opposes peace,” he said.

Among the oddities in Shamir’s new Cabinet is the naming of a religious party ally to be minister of the interior who is under investigation for corruption. Another religious appointee, this to the Communications Ministry in charge of an experimental television station and cable network, does not own a television or watch it.

BACKGROUND

The government installed Monday is Israel’s 24th in the 42 years since independence. Early governments were relatively long-lived, led by David Ben-Gurion (1948-63), Levi Eshkol (1963-69) and Golda Meir (1969-74). But in recent years, neither Likud nor Labor--the biggest parties--have been able to muster enough votes in the Knesset to name its own Cabinet. So, they have resorted to uneasy coalitions with each other or with small, extremist parties, producing squabbling and instability. At times, Israel has gone for weeks without a government. Many Israelis blame the parliamentary system and want to reform it.