Shamir Puts the Lie to Own Plan

TEL AVIV —  Those innocents who had deluded themselves about the true intentions of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir concerning the government’s election and peace initiatives were taken aback by his support of Ariel Sharon’s position when the Likud Party Central Committee met. The experts were not; Shamir deceived no one.

What happened at the meeting did not represent a change of principles on the part of Shamir. Sharon and his fellows simply forced Shamir to tell the truth. They forced him to say what he really thinks about the initiative that he had submitted on behalf of the government of Israel.

The proposal, which also bore the name of Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, would allow Palestinians in the occupied territories to elect representatives to negotiate a peace framework with the Israeli government. Rabin wanted the initiative to succeed, while Shamir hoped, from the outset, that the Arabs would turn it down. When the Likud debate erupted, after the initiative had been forwarded to Washington, Shamir branded it “an unlaid egg.” Foreign Minister Moshe Arens was quick to declare that it had in fact been rejected by the Arabs. So hasty a pronouncement of failure can only come from the mouth of one who wants it.

Shamir’s real desire was not so much to negotiate with the Palestinians and their leaders as to pacify Washington. It was a peace move between Likud and Labor rather than an Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative. Yet the plan offered an unprecedented proposal: free elections for the Palestinian inhabitants of the territories, to precede negotiations on a permanent settlement.

Initially, the Labor Party maintained that, although Shamir’s original motives were unlike their own, reality would make him support the political initiative. Willy-nilly, he would find himself, at least on this issue, the partner of Labor’s Rabin, the defense minister who has no enthusiasm for the military presence in the West Bank and Gaza.

But it so happened that the Arabs had not rejected Shamir’s initiative out of hand. He was alarmed to find out that Washington was serously thinking of promoting it in discussions with the Palestine Liberation Organization in Tunis. When the Likud committee met, Shamir, as his party’s leader as well as Israel’s prime minister, attached some monumental stumbling blocks to the plan.

There no longer is a Shamir-Rabin plan. There is a Shamir-Sharon plan. Just as Likud has torpedoed other parties’ peace initiatives, Shamir set up one in his own name to be shot down. In the wake of the Likud decision to attach stringent limitations to the election proposal, the Labor Party faced a serious dilemma. Those who want a break with Likud and the government coalition argue that Labor should have no share in the undermining of the political initiative for negotiations with the Palestinians. The party should not act as a fig leaf to Sharon, who, with Shamir as his hostage, has begun imposing his political strategies on Likud.

But things are not as simple as all that. Sharon’s designs are not restricted to hamstringing the prime minister. What he plainly wants is to remove the Labor Party from the government. He would then be free to return to the Defense Ministry, a springboard to the premiership. As minister of defense, Sharon could freeze any attempt to launch serious political moves with the Palestinians. Thus, if the Labor Party walked out, it would be playing into Sharon’s hands. The outcome would spell irreversible damage to Israel.

It is no surprise that Washington has been trying to persuade Labor to remain in the national unity government. The United States would not be able to ignore a collapse of the coalition, and its response would of necessity create a confrontation with Israel.

There is very little time left before the Labor Party makes up its mind. Now, the only thing to do is to put Shamir to the test; to see whether he is committed to the hard and onerous position he himself brought before the Likud committee, or whether he is committed to the political initiative endorsed in May by his own government. Shamir should be pushed into a Cabinet confrontation with Sharon.

It is also up to Washington to examine Shamir’s intentions instead of making do with his meaningless gestures. In the present circumstances, it would be folly to continue waiting indefinitely for the situation in the Middle East to become ripe for a political process. The extremists, both on the Palestinian side and on the Israeli side, will never allow the situation to reach that stage. The massacre on the Israeli bus and the Likud resolution show this to be true.