Israeli Parties Vie to Forge Coalition : Likud Believed Likelier to Gain Orthodox Allies

Israel’s prime election issue, peace in the Middle East, faded into the background Wednesday as an upbeat Likud Party and a distressed Labor Party competed feverishly for the support of religious party leaders in the hope of forging a coalition government.

The rightist Likud Party of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir is philosophically closer to the religious parties and thus is considered more likely to attract their support than is the center-left Labor Party of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

In Tuesday’s parliamentary elections, neither party won a majority of the 120 seats in the Knesset. The latest count gives Likud 39 seats and Labor 38.

But Likud, counting on its natural allies on the extreme right for 7 seats and on the religious parties for 18 seats--they had won only 12 in 1984--should be able to form a government. A dozen minor parties will also be represented in the Knesset, but none has more than 5 seats.

“For the next few weeks, the capital of Israel will not be Jerusalem but Bnai Brak,” said Shevah Weiss, a Labor Party figure, referring to an ultra-Orthodox district near Tel Aviv.

Under Israeli law, the process of coalition-building begins when the president calls on one party or another to form a government. President Chaim Herzog is expected to act within the next few days, and he is expected to call on Likud, which received more votes than any other party.

The business of putting together a Cabinet and a working majority in the Knesset could take several weeks, with the parties haggling over who is to have what ministry and how much money is to be spent on pet projects.

Shamir and Peres both met Wednesday morning with the leaders of the four religious parties, which are either Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox. For Labor, the outlook was not encouraging, and some Labor leaders suggested that the party, which has always been unabashedly secular, drop out of the competition and prepare to take up the role of opposition in the Knesset.

“I don’t see any possibility of forming a government,” Yuri Baram, the Labor Party secretary, told Israeli reporters. “We have very little leverage on them.”

Peres said, “Labor has never desired to obtain power at any price.”

Hand in Glove

Likud, on the other hand, was confident that the basic positions of the religious parties fit hand in glove with those of Likud--notably that geographic Israel should include all the land on the West Bank of the Jordan River, an area occupied by Israel but peopled mainly by Arabs.

“What came out (of the election) loud and clear,” said Yitzhak Modai, a leading Likud official, “is that there will be a state of Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”

In the voting, the four religious parties--all of which favor strict observance of the rites and traditions of Judaism--performed as follows:

-- Agudat Israel, the political arm in Israel of the influential, New York-based Lubavitch movement, won five Knesset seats, compared with only two in the last elections.

-- Flag of the Torah, a breakaway party from Agudat competing for the first time, won another two seats.

-- The Sephardic Torah Guardians (Shas) Party, riding on the appeal of former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, gained six seats, compared with four in 1984.

-- And the recently revamped National Religious Party, which adopted a hard-line nationalist program for these elections, increased its strength to five Knesset seats from four in 1984.

On Wednesday, the religious parties were keeping their plans and demands to themselves.

The National Religious Party probably stands closest to Likud on the issue of the occupied lands, but it too was disclosing little information.

“I think we are for the greater Land of Israel, but socially, I do not consider myself rightist,” NRP leader Avner Shanki said.

Leaders of Shas, ultra-Orthodox Jews of North African origin, hinted that they might find a home with Likud.

‘Options Are Open’

“We have said that our tendency is toward the right,” Shas spokesman Moshe Peretz said, “but our options are open.”

Spokesmen for Agudat Israel expressed an immediate preference for joining Likud but warned that the party would not be represented in any Cabinet that includes a woman. By tradition, ultra-Orthodox Jewish men do not mingle publicly with women.

The Flag of the Torah’s position was not clear. It is feuding with Agudat Israel over alleged election-day harassment of its supporters in Orthodox neighborhoods.

In the past, religious parties have been concerned with questions of education, tradition and public decorum, and experts said Wednesday that these questions will dominate the coalition talks.

Affecting Night Life

Israeli night life could be affected by the haggling. Ultra-Orthodox Jews have tried for years to shut down entertainment places on the Sabbath.

“We’re not just talking about high politics here, we’re talking about small things that every Israeli feels and knows about,” political scientist Ehud Sprinzak said.

Leaders of the centrist Shinui Party, which will have two seats in the Knesset, called on Labor and Likud to join forces and form a government, then reform the electoral system in such a way as to reduce the power of religious groups.

Several analysts saw a possibility that bargaining with the religious and extreme right-wing groups might be so difficult that Likud will again turn to Labor. Together they have governed Israel for the past four years, with Shamir and Peres alternating in the prime minister’s office.

But Shamir, as he had Tuesday night in his victory speech, dismissed the idea of renewing the so-called national unity government. He objects to Labor’s support for an international conference on Middle East peace--a conference that would include Palestinians.

‘Burned Bridges’

“Labor burned its bridges,” Shamir said.

The peace issue is very much on the sidelines for the moment. Labor had promised to convene peace talks immediately, but Likud made no such promise and kept its plans vague. Now, with Likud likely to form the new government, Israeli analysts began to bury the prospects for a peace move.

“I would say,” researcher Daniel Gavron said, “that for the time being the peace process is definitely in the deep freeze.”

The United States has been urging peace talks, trying to persuade Israel to return part of the territory it occupied in the 1967 Middle East War in exchange for a comprehensive peace treaty with its Arab neighbors.

Arab Uprising

The occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip have been in turmoil for almost 11 months, with Palestinians there rising up against the Israeli occupation.

Likud has pledged to put a quick end to the uprising--the intifada , it is called in Arabic--but no one knows how much tougher the Likud government might get with the Palestinians.

A hint may come when a defense minister is named. Ariel Sharon, the controversial architect of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, has said that as defense minister, he would take bold steps to punish rebellious Arabs. His rival for the post, Moshe Arens, a former ambassador to the United States, is regarded as less hard-line than Sharon.

Times staff writer Dan Fisher contributed to this article.