Rabin Takes Over, Calls for Speedier Talks

Yitzhak Rabin, a war hero completing his long comeback to power, took over the reins of Israel’s government Monday and, along with a ritual call for visits by Arab leaders to Jerusalem, quickly invited Palestinian and Jordanian negotiators for a meeting designed to speed up Middle East peace talks.

“The government’s first directive to (its) negotiating teams will be to step up talks and hold ongoing discussions,” he told Israel’s Parliament in an opening address. “As a first step, to illustrate our sincerity and goodwill, I wish to invite the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to an informal talk, here in Jerusalem, so that we can hear their views, make ourselves heard and create an appropriate atmosphere for neighborly relations.”

Later in the speech, Rabin invited the leaders of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon to speak at the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, and said he would be willing to travel to Arab capitals. Such sweeping invitations have long been a staple of Israeli rhetoric, but the invitation to Jordan and especially to the Palestinians was clearly meant to provoke a response.

“We offer you the fairest and most viable proposal from our standpoint today: autonomy, with all its advantages and disadvantages,” he said, directly addressing the Palestinians during the televised speech.

“Take your destiny in your hands. Don’t lose this opportunity that may never return. Take our proposal seriously to avoid further suffering, humiliation and grief--to end the shedding of tears and blood.”

In a departure from their frequent negativism, the Palestinians did not immediately reject the Rabin invitation. “It’s an important speech,” said Faisal Husseini, the West Bank’s top leader and loyalist of the Palestine Liberation Organization. “It deals with many issues of substance.”

Husseini said the PLO and local leaders would respond to the invitation today.

In a series of recent comments, Rabin has signaled a belief that talks on self-rule for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip hold the best chance for progress, and peace with Jordan would develop in tandem with a Palestinian accord. On the other hand, he views militarily powerful Syria, which dominates Lebanon, as a more difficult negotiating partner.

The new prime minister warned the Palestinians that time is running out--and hinted that Israeli settlement of the West Bank and Gaza would resume if violence flares and the talks break down. “If you reject this proposal, we shall go on talking,” he said, “but treat the territories as if there were no dialogue going on between us.”

In the meantime, Rabin pledged to “refrain from any steps and activities that would disrupt the proper conduct of the negotiations.” The phrase has become the official euphemism for a freeze on the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

After his speech, Rabin’s Cabinet won a vote of confidence from 67 members of the 120-member Knesset, and his government was sworn in. The vote marked the formal return of the Labor Party to a decisive place in power after 15 years of playing catch-up with the right-wing Likud Party. Rabin last served as prime minister from 1974 to 1977, when he resigned over a scandal involving a personal foreign bank account.

President Bush congratulated Rabin by telephone and told him he would be sending Secretary of State James A. Baker III to the Middle East next week “to get the ball rolling” on peace talks. The President also invited the new Israeli prime minister to visit him at his Maine vacation home in early August, White House officials said in Kennebunkport.

In last month’s national elections, Rabin led the Labor Party to a handsome plurality of 44 seats in the Knesset. In coalition with the leftist Meretz bloc and Shas, a religious party representing the so-called Oriental Jews, those of Middle Eastern and North African origin, and with the outside support of a pair of Arab parties, he was able to form a majority government without Likud or other rightist parties committed to keeping the West Bank and Gaza under Israel’s full control. Rabin takes power with expectations of rapid change in a country deeply divided over the framework of peace with the Palestinians.

Rabin, who for the occasion replaced his customary open shirt with a blue suit and tie, spoke Monday with unusual eloquence and sprinkled his speech with biblical and poetic quotations. He emphasized a need for Israel to win peace in a new world of change where “walls of enmity have fallen, borders have disappeared, powers have crumbled and ideologies collapsed; states have been born, states have died, and the gates of emigration have been flung open.”

He also urged Israelis to shed the suspicion that has often colored the country’s relations with the outside world. “No longer are we necessarily a ‘nation that dwells alone,’ and no longer is it true that the whole world is against us,” he declared. “We must overcome the sense of isolation that has held us in its thrall for almost half a century.”

Ousted Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir sat among the opposition in Parliament, still the nominal head of a large bloc suspicious of sweeping proposals to give Palestinians self-rule. In a response to Rabin, Shamir called the new government “extremist” and warned against giving Palestinians control of land.

“The Land of Israel is not just a piece of land to be traded in the marketplace,” he said. Shamir criticized Rabin for omitting from his speech the phrase “Land of Israel,” which for the right wing signifies a historical claim to the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Shamir, 76, is expected to retire from politics.

Rabin, who as army chief of staff led Israel to victory in the 1967 Middle East War, set formidable tasks for himself. He said he expects to hammer out an agreement with Palestinians within a year. He pledged to reorder national priorities by channeling funds into the national economy and away from settling the occupied territories. He also committed himself to streamlining the government and pressing for electoral reform to give the prime minister greater powers.

He put high importance on repairing relations with Washington, Israel’s most generous benefactor.

“We shall spare no effort to strengthen and improve the special relationship we have with the one power in the world,” he said. He was careful to add that excess pressure from the United States would not be welcome.

“The decisions will be ours alone, of Israel as a sovereign and independent state,” he said.

These pledges come atop Israel’s long-term burdens: securing the borders, defending against the Middle East arms buildup, reforming the economy and obliterating the remnants of socialism, and making life easier for tens of thousands of new immigrants by providing jobs.

“One of the first problems facing the new Israeli government is the expectations of it,” wrote political commentator Nahum Barnea. “This time around, there will be no period of grace or honeymoon.”