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PAGE 2 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE November 22, 1985
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Peres not clear-cut winner
as Sharon brouhaha ends
by Yaacov Ben Yosef
Special to The Southern Israelite
Enrollment is limited
Hourly rate: $25
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The Women’s Division of
The Atlanta Jewish Federation
invites you to “hold the date”
for
UNICOI
(in Atlanta)
Please note corrected date
Sunday, February 9,1986
Ruth Gruber
Scholar in Residence
Atlanta Jewish Federation
1753 Peachtree Road
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
873-1661
JERUSALEM—Now that Prime
Minister Shimon Peres has battled
Ariel Sharon to a draw, and the
minister for trade and commerce
avoided being fired, it appears
unlikely that Peres will soon again
rush into another confrontation
with Sharon and the rival Likud
bloc.
If last week’s crisis proved any
thing, it is that Peres does not yet
have the political strength that
would soon enable him to oversee
the ending of his 14-month-old
national unity government. Ironically,
Peres is enjoying record popularity
among the voters; but he still lacks
the support of the Orthodox religious
parties.
Had he possessed their support
last week, the prime minister would
almost certainly have carried through
with his planned dismissal of Sharon
from the government. That would
have meant the fall of the unity
government. It would have then
been up to Peres to try to form a
narrow government, i.e. one without
the Likud, or failing that, to call
for new elections.
In the end, Peres permitted the
small religious parties, particularly
Shas, to conduct lengthy negotiations
with Sharon that culminated in the
Thursday evening letter apology
from the minister for commerce
and industry to the prime minister,
ending the political crisis.
The crisis began Monday evening
when Sharon gave a speech in
Yaacov Ben Yosef
Haifa to activists of the Herut
Party (largest member of the Likud
bloc). Sharon accused Peres of
bypassing the Cabinet by negotiating
a secret agreement with Jordan to
hold an international peace con
ference; and he suggested that the
prime minister had gone soft on
the PLO. “I am sorry to say that
today we are in a very serious
situation, in which a person, with
unparalleled cynicism, with disregard
for every accepted administrative
norm, leads the government on a
twisting path.”
Sharon had been blasting away
at the prime minister for the past
few weeks, but the Haifa speech
was the final straw.
On Wednesday morning, Peres
met Likud leader, Foreign Minister
Yitzhak Shamir, and demanded
that he agree that Sharon should
be fired from the government for
his anti-Peres statements. Demurring,
Shamir reminded Peres that their
coalition agreement required the
prime minister to secure Shamir’s
approval before dismissing any
Cabinet member—and Shamir had
no intention of backing Peres on
this matter. If Peres carried out his
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threat, Shamir would take the Likud
out of the government. Peres said
he had Israeli basic law on his side
and it overrode their coalition pact
Calling the Cabinet into emergency
session at 6 p.m. that evening
Peres leaked word after his session
with Shamir that he would announce
his intention to fire Sharon to the
Cabinet.
Just before the Cabinet was to
meet, Sharon told newsmen that
“if the things I said personally
insulted the prime minister, I retract
them. But at the same time I want
to make clear that I remain firm in
my positions (regarding the govern
ment’s policies).” That intended
apology did not impress Peres who
passed word that he would still fire
Sharon at the cabinet meeting. At
7 p.m., when the ministers gathered
in the Cabinet room a floor above
the prime minister’s office in Jeru
salem, Peres read out his letter of
dismissal to Sharon.
Though Peres had hoped for a
five-minute session, Sharon surprised
him by asking for the floor, and
read out the statement he had
earlier read to newsmen. Peres
slightly backed off, letting the
mediators go back to work; he
agreed to hold off from delivering
the letter to Sharon, indicating
that he would rip up the letter if an
apology, more concrete than the
first one, was forthcoming.
And so throughout Thursday,
Shas leader Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz
conducted more mediation efforts
between Peres and Sharon. By the
evening, the consultations intensified
enough for Sharon to postpone a
planned departure for the United
States. Peretz shuttled back and
forth betw'een the Tel Aviv offices
of the two key actors in the drama,
finally wrestling from Sharon the
kind of letter which was acceptable
to Peres.
The intriguing question asked in
the aftermath of last week’s crisis
was this: why did Prime Minister
Peres retreat, why did he not carry
out his threat to fire Sharon?
Likud strategists are convinced
Continued next page.
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