Peres Is Sworn In, Seeks Syria Talks : Israel: With 11-month term and new Cabinet, prime minister sets ambitious agenda of dialogue at home, abroad.

Seeking peace talks with Syria and dialogue with political adversaries at home, Shimon Peres was sworn in as prime minister of Israel on Wednesday for the 11 months remaining of his slain predecessor’s term.

The normally unruly Israeli Knesset, or Parliament, managed a display of unity in approving Peres’ new government by a vote of 62 to 8. Thirty-eight members abstained rather than oppose a government brought to power by an assassin’s bullet.

The Knesset’s moment of solidarity was in homage to Yitzhak Rabin, who was fatally shot on Nov. 4 by a Jewish law student opposed to his peace policies, and it was a statement that Israeli governments must be changed by elections, not murder.

But the period of grace is unlikely to continue for very long as Peres pursues the seemingly conflicting goals he outlined in his speech. The faster he moves on Syria talks, the less likely he is to see dialogue and national unity.

Demonstrating once again his willingness to move out in front of Israeli public opinion, Peres told the Knesset, “I wish to say to Syrian President Hafez [Assad] that there is no longer any logic to war between us. The differences of opinion which remain can be resolved through negotiations based upon mutual respect.”

Despite the truce, opposition Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu did not hesitate to respond to Peres’ initiative.

“This is not the time . . . to take far-reaching steps that will deepen the divisions among people,” Netanyahu said. “This is a time to stop and try to mend the rifts.”

Syria and its ally, Lebanon, are the only Arab countries bordering Israel that have yet to make peace with the Jewish state. Talks sponsored by the United States have broken down over Syria’s demand for the return of the entire Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

Many Israelis want to keep possession of the fertile and water-rich Golan. Others believe the country needs to hang on to at least part of the region’s high ground along the border with Syria as a defensive military position.

Rabin’s view was that Israel could give back the land if it was allowed to leave early warning stations--equipment and military personnel.

Before he was killed, however, Rabin seemed to have put Syria on the back burner in favor of carrying out his 1993 peace accord with Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat. Under the accord, Israeli troops were about to redeploy from Arab cities in the West Bank and Rabin apparently feared he did not have the political support to give up territory on two fronts at the same time.

Rabin’s confessed assassin, Yigal Amir, has said he murdered the prime minister because Rabin was giving Palestinians land in the West Bank that Israel captured in the 1967 war. Like many religious Jews, Amir considers the land to be a Jewish biblical inheritance.

In the past two weeks, Peres has tried to mend fences with opponents of these peace policies whom Rabin had written off. He reached out to Jewish settlers during a trip to the West Bank, and he sought reconciliation with Israel’s religious community by appointing Rabbi Yehuda Amital to his new government as a minister without portfolio.

On Wednesday, Peres said his government would work for “domestic harmony within Israel. We will not build upon ideological coercion, and we will not allow ourselves to submit to violence. Instead of incitement, we will offer dialogue.”

But so far he has been unable to expand the governing coalition beyond the razor-thin margin that Rabin had. The government generally can count on 63 votes in the 120-seat Knesset, although Rabin’s interim peace accord with Arafat was approved by only 61 votes in September.

Peres also may be hampered by a dovish image among some sectors of the population that fear he may sacrifice the nation’s security to achieve peace agreements.

Despite his avowed interest in peace over elections, Peres in effect is already embroiled in the campaign for next year’s election for prime minister and the Knesset.

But Peres seemed undaunted as he stated the main goal of his administration would be comprehensive peace by the year 2000.

“We will deepen cooperation with Egypt, continue building full peace with Jordan, carry out the interim agreements with the Palestinians and support their [Jan. 20] democratic elections,” he said.

“We will be prepared to renew the negotiations with Syria and Lebanon. . . . I wish to propose to the Syrian president that we make a real contribution in order to put an end to the era of wars in the Middle East,” he said.

In pursuit of his goals, Peres named Yossi Beilin, one of the architects of the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, as a special minister in the prime minister’s office. Peres made another protege, Uri Savir, the point man on talks with Syria in place of Rabin’s ally, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Itamar Rabinovich. Savir is the one who negotiated the periods and commas of the interim agreement with the Palestinians.

Peres is scheduled to meet with President Clinton in Washington next month, primarily to discuss the Syria talks.

Explaining for the first time why he kept the defense portfolio for himself, Peres said it “is the one that bridges security and peace. In order to achieve peace, we must have security. To achieve security, we must have peace.”