A Squabble That Could Reach Far : Small party’s action could threaten Rabin’s government--and the Israeli-Arab peace talks

As if dealing with the Palestinians across the bargaining table isn’t taxing enough, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin now finds himself wearyingly negotiating with other Israeli politicians to try to preserve his government’s viability. Riding on the outcome could be Israel’s ability to make progress with its Arab antagonists in the U.S.-sponsored peace talks.

The problem is a recurrent one in Israeli politics. Rabin’s government, like all others that have preceded it over the last 45 years, is a coalition, in the present case one that relies on the participation of several parties with markedly different views about how Israeli society should be organized.

In the past such disputes have usually been smoothed over by a judicious allocation of offices and benefits and by the common interest of all the coalition partners in holding on to power. Rabin had hoped to achieve a similar kind of coexistence. Arye Deri, leader of the religious Shas party, which contributes six seats to Rabin’s narrow 62-member legislative majority, was given the Interior Ministry. Shulamit Aloni, leader of the leftist Meretz bloc, which holds 12 seats in the 120-member Knesset, was made minister of education and culture. Almost immediately, though, sparks began to fly, with Shas taking umbrage at a number of public comments about religion made by the emphatically secular Aloni. Deri has threatened to quit the coalition unless Aloni is stripped of her education portfolio. Rabin has until the weekend to try to work out a deal to mollify both sides.

If Shas leaves the government Rabin could still scrape together a one-vote majority in the Knesset and so continue to govern. But that margin would depend on support from the five Israeli Arab members, raising an acute political problem. Any deals with the Arabs reached by Israel in the Washington talks would have to be approved by the Knesset. The vote there almost certainly would be perilously close. Rabin doesn’t want to have to count on non-Jewish members when it comes to deciding an issue of vital importance to the future of the Jewish state.

Shas, like Meretz, supports the peace process. Yet the clashes between the two parties--as much a matter of personalities as of policies--potentially threaten the government’s ability to negotiate and win backing for a deal with the Palestinians. The fundamental problem, of course, stems from the peculiarities of Israel’s electoral system, under which small parties can often demand disproportionate political power. Compared to the larger issues facing Israel, the Shas-Meretz fight seems a petty affair, a “surrealistic play” as one official calls it. Yet there it is, and on its outcome may rest not just the government’s fate but, conceivably, the future of the peace process itself.