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PAGE 8 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE- March 28, 198*
Mubarak: Slaying won’t deter Israeli talks
by Yaacov Ben Yosef
Special to I he Southern Israelite
JERUSALEM Relations be
tween Israel and Egypt took one
more step backward last week w hen
an employee at the Israeli Embassv
in Cairo was killed and three other
embassy employees wounded out
side the Egyptian Trade Fair. Uni
dentified gunmen shot at the four
last Wednesday as the Israelis were
driving away from the fair where
they had been helping out at the
Israeli pavilion.
Only a half-hour earlier. Israel's
Minister of Tourism Avraham
Sharir had \lsited the Pavilion,
talked with the four employees,
including the murdered one. 24-
year-old Eti Tal-Or.
It seemed possible that the at
tackers had wanted to strike at
Sharir and had to settle tor the
Israeli embassy staff. Sharir cut
short his visit to Egypt because ol
the shooting.
Sharir met with Egyptian Presi
dent Hosni Mubarak the day alter
the attack. Mubarak, expressing
dismay at the attack, assured Sharir
that Egypt wanted the peace pro
cess to continue.
As it happened, a team of Israeli
negotiators, led by the directors-
general of the prime minister's office
and the f oreign Ministry, were in
Cairo putting on what they hoped
would be the finishing touches of
an accord that could lead to a
breakthrough in the stalled Taba
dispute.
I aba is the sliver of sandy beach
south of Eilat which both Israel
and Egypt claim as their own.
Taba, though in Sinai, remains in
Israeli hands.
Details of what they discussed
were kept deliberately vague; but it
was known that Levy wanted to
reassemble the 2,000 convention
delegates as soon as possible, pref
erably before the Labor Party con
vention which begins on April 8.
That seemed unlikely given the
gap which still exists between
Shamir and Levy. Shamir wants
the convention to crown his party
leadership; Levy is demanding that
the convention create a sort of co
leadership between himself and
Shamir, a step that would put him
in a dominant position to inherit
Yaacov Ben Yosef
Shamir's leadership in two-and-a-
haIf years.
Shamir is scheduled to replace
Peres as prime minister in October
and serve for two years in that
post. But he is now 70. and Herut
would have to choose a new leader
on the eve of the 1088 elections.
The Levy-Shamir meetings
prompted new talk that Shamir
was try ing to put a wedge between
Levy and Ariel Sharon, the minis
ter for commerce and industry.
However, it seems likely that
Sharon will emerge as one of the
four top leaders of Herut in the
new distribution of power which
Shamir and Levy will have to agree
on.
Labor, meanw hile, was attempt
ing to iron out some differences
within its membership over the
rotation agreement. Some 104
members of the Labor Party Cen
tral Committee had called for a
meeting to demand that the com
mittee discuss the rotation accord
with the idea of getting Peres to
scuttle the arrangement he has with
Shamir to have power transferred
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-• 'XX UK— MW ■ 1*W-
By Henry ® Barbara Urossbere
Israel A Neira Goldberg
Kosher Meals Amiable Upon Hepuesi
I
I
DOC
next fall.
While Egypt has been pressing
for a resolution of the Taba matter
hoping to turn the issue over to
arbitration, the Israelis have been
demanding in return an improved
Egyptian attitude toward trade and
tourism between the two countries
Aware that Israel was interested
in such matters, Mubarak prom
ised Sharir that he was taking steps
to enable more Egyptian imports
to reach Israel. Egypt will do away
with certain restrictions and per
mit Israel to have the same stand-
ingas European countries. Healso
vowed that he would make it pos
sible for more Egyptian journalists
to visit Israel.
Clearly, the Egyptian president
was hoping to neutralize the dam
age caused by Wednesday’s attack.
For the most part, Israeli offi
cials reacted calmly to the incident
in the hope of not hurting relations
with Egypt any further. Prime
Minister Shimon Peres and For
eign Minister Yitzhak Shamir both
expressed the wish that Egypt
should work to improve its protec
tion of Israelis on Egyptian soil.
Apart from this, Egypt has been
unwilling to agree to a Peres-
Mubarak summit; and it has not,
as it had promised, returned its
ambassador to Tel Aviv once Israel
left Lebanon. The last Israeli sold
ier was out of Lebanon last June.
Meanwhile, the Israeli political
scene grew slightly less chaotic
than it had been in the past few
weeks.
After the stormy and deadlocked
Herut Party convention of two
weeks ago, the two rival party
leaders. Shamir and Deputy Prime
Minister David Levy, held two
fairly friendly though inconclusive
meetings to heal the wounds.
The 1.100-member central com
mittee met Sunday and heard Peres
speak forcefully against a change
in the rotation plan before October.
Peres did say that Shamir's days as
prime minister would be numbered
if he did not live up to the letter of
the Labor-Likud coalition agree
ment on foreign policy and eco
nomic issues.
“If our path is hampered. I will
propose that we hold immediate
elections,” Peres promised.
The dissidents in the party bent
after hearing Peres and agreed that
the issue could be turned over to
the entire convention (where 3.000
delegates will gather) in a few weeks
But, the minor rebellion in Labor
against rotation appears to have
been blocked for the time being It
may be difficult, but we must go
through with it (rotation) honora
bly and unhesitatingly,” Peres told
the committee.
It cannot be excluded of course
that Peres is in fact deeply sympa
thetic with the dissidents, and will
look hard in the next few months
for a way to end rotation. But, in
public at least, he must appear to
be willing to turn over the prime
ministership to Shamir It he does
not give that impression he vvi
certainly be accused ot deceit and
that could hurt him with voters,
some of whom insist that Peres has
a long-standing credibility problem-