Shamir Opens Vote Drive Vowing to Keep West Bank

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir opened his reelection campaign Monday with a defiant blast at efforts to halt his settlement program in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and he put his coming battle with President Bush over new foreign aid in terms of a conflict between Jews and non-Jews.

With the date of new elections still up in the air, top officials of Shamir’s government nonetheless took to the campaign trail, which mostly led to the West Bank.

It was Israeli Arbor Day, and Shamir took the opportunity to plant a tree in Betar, a new West Bank settlement, one that has gone up largely during the past 18 months of intense opposition to settlements from the Bush Administration. The community is among several built in hills surrounding the lone Palestinian village of Nahallin.

There, he told the crowd of pious religious settlers: “We say to ourselves and the Gentiles of the world and to the next generation: Here will be our homeland, here will be our home forever and ever. This building will continue, and no power on Earth will stop this construction.”

Bush is pondering a call to freeze settlements as a condition for granting U.S. guarantees that would make it cheaper for Israel to obtain economic development loans. Israel pleads that it needs the loans to provide jobs to immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

But Shamir’s finance minister, Yitzhak Modai, advised that Israel should forgo the loans if it means surrendering on the settlement issue. “My position would be to object to freezing settlements,” he said. “We cannot loosen this grip (on the West Bank and Gaza) because of consideration for absorbing immigrants.”

Moshe Arens, the defense minister and a chief ally of Shamir, contributed to the daylong barrage of defiance. He also planted a tree in the West Bank--at Ariel, a burgeoning settlement that has made an aggressive pitch to house immigrants from the former Soviet Union. There, he told supporters: “This government wants to bring peace to the people of Israel, the State of Israel, but not at the price of our rights to this land.”

The peace-and-territory formula has emerged as a virtual campaign slogan of the Likud Party, to which Arens and Shamir belong. It is a campaign designed to present Likud as the party of peace to middle-of-the-road voters and the party of expansion into the West Bank and Gaza to right-wing nationalists.

There is a built-in risk to this dual approach, Likud officials say.

On the one hand, presenting itself as the peace party may not attract skeptical doves; hardly anyone believes that Shamir is enthusiastic about the Middle East peace talks that began last October in Madrid and have continued in Washington.

On the other hand, far-right voters may not be convinced that Likud is committed to holding onto the West Bank and Gaza.

“It is hard for the Likud to decide which way to go,” said a senior government official, “so it will go both ways.”

The Bush Administration’s decision on the loan guarantees is expected in early February. Shamir asked the Administration to underwrite $2 billion in loans for 1992; the Administration would have to set aside hundreds of thousands of dollars and promise to pay the loans if Israel defaults on them. Over the next five years, Israel wants America to guarantee a total of $10 billion in loans.

While Bush has hinted that he will make a halt to settlement expansion a key condition of the guarantees, Shamir has floated a compromise proposal under which he would promise not to invest more money in the West Bank and Gaza this year than last.

Since April, 1990, more than 18,000 houses have been built in the West Bank and Gaza, and more than 3,000 mobile homes have been transferred there in hopes of housing new immigrants from the old Soviet Union. More than 60 miles of road have been built to service the settlements.

Shamir now rules Israel with a minority in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament. He has yet to resign, and it is unclear whether far-right parties and his liberal opponents will unite to formally bring down his government. Talks are under way between Likud and the main opposition party, Labor, to set an election date.

In any event, Labor, the largest opposition party, is also unveiling the theme of its campaign. Party leaders are hitting the Likud hard on the country’s economic performance in hopes of attracting jobless immigrants from the old Soviet Union, as well as habitual Likud voters from Israel’s large, underprivileged North African and Near Eastern Jewish community.