Israeli Coalition Collapses on Eve of Peace Talks

After teetering for weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s governing coalition collapsed Sunday on the eve of a crucial Middle East peace summit designed to end half a century of conflict between the Jewish state and the Palestinians.

Three of six coalition parties and his foreign minister deserted Barak on Sunday, all motivated by various degrees of anger over concessions they believe Barak is prepared to make to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the make-or-break talks that start Tuesday at Camp David in Maryland, with President Clinton as host.

The political disintegration leaves Barak extremely vulnerable even as he negotiates what may be the final settlement to a bloody conflict that has roiled the Middle East for 52 years. He has lost the majority he had in the Israeli parliament, jeopardizing all his future efforts both to govern and to gain official approval for any peace deal.

But Barak, characteristically, remained resolute. Addressing the nation on television Sunday night, he vowed to attend the Camp David summit “with a profound sense of responsibility” despite his domestic political trouble.

“I was not given a mandate by the politicians, nor by the parties,” Barak said, reading soberly and defiantly from a prepared text and appealing directly to voters who gave him a landslide electoral victory more than a year ago. “I was given a mandate by each and every one of you. . . . I must rise higher than all of the political differences and the party considerations and . . . bring the bloody rivalry between our neighbors and us to an end.”

Technically, the departure of the three political parties, and the six Cabinet ministers who represent them, could cause the government to fall as early as today during any of three no-confidence votes scheduled in parliament.

But that scenario seems unlikely for now, because other smaller parties that are not part of the government, including Arab and leftist factions, can be expected to vote to sustain Barak. Late Sunday, he postponed his flight to the United States to be able to attend the parliament votes.

The further weakening of Barak’s leadership could not come at a worse time. Many here believe that early elections are inevitable, and, reflecting that belief, the main highway from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv was festooned Sunday with campaign-style posters both for and against the prime minister. Barak has said he will submit an eventual peace agreement to a popular referendum, in a bid to bypass the rebellious parliament and the fractious coalition that he took such care to craft.

On Sunday, the Palestinian leadership said it too will ask its people to vote on any peace deal that might emerge from Camp David. That announcement came as pessimism about the peace process is growing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip--where Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority, is vowing to declare an independent state as early as Sept. 13 regardless of where the talks stand.

It has been widely reported here that Barak intends to offer the Palestinians roughly 90% of the West Bank along with a hand in running parts of Jerusalem. A small number of Palestinian refugees would also be allowed to return to what is today Israel, according to these reports. Still, all of this falls short of what the Palestinians have been demanding.

Use of International Peacekeepers Sought

One of Arafat’s chief negotiators, Yasser Abed-Rabbo, said Sunday at a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah that the Palestinians will also demand international peacekeeping forces to monitor the Palestinian state’s eventual borders. He said Arafat will not accept an interim agreement at Camp David or permit the postponing of some of the most intractable issues, such as the status of Jerusalem, as has been suggested. The Palestinians want to see concrete results rather than deferred promises, he said.

“We do not trust the Israelis,” he said.

The Palestinians were taking pains to exude an image of unity going into the summit. Arafat is taking along an unusually large delegation that includes academics, human rights experts and opposition parties in addition to his standard entourage.

The same could not be said for Barak on Sunday night.

Interior Minister Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet refusenik and a prominent member of Barak’s Cabinet, made good on an earlier threat to resign, taking with him his Israel With Immigration party, which represents an enormous bloc of voters who moved to Israel from Russia. The National Religious Party, which represents Zionist Orthodox Jews, also carried through on its earlier threat to bolt.

But the decision of the third party to announce it was quitting came as more of a surprise. Shas, the second-largest in Barak’s coalition, had recently exacted major concessions from Barak, including money and influence, in exchange for a promise to stay in the government and support, generally, a peace agenda.

Shas leader Eli Yishai reneged Sunday, saying his party of ultra-Orthodox Sephardic Jews was leaving the coalition because its leaders were being kept in the dark and were not being treated as full partners.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister David Levy did not resign from office, but he stunned observers here by announcing that he was boycotting the summit. Levy’s criticisms of Barak’s handling of the peace process had become increasingly public in recent days, and he was also said to be miffed at having been sidelined by Barak in back-channel talks.

Levy told aides that he felt he was being used as a rubber stamp for an already done deal.

Sharansky accused Barak of planning far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians without having secured backing for them within his Cabinet and the parliament.

“I left the government because I exhausted all my opportunities to try to influence from inside [the government] to prevent the dangerous developments which are taking place,” Sharansky told reporters after he formally handed in his resignation and before he began a “sit-in” at a protest tent across from Barak’s office.

There was some suggestion that Barak might feel liberated with right-wingers out of his government. But undoubtedly there was keen disappointment for Barak at the failure of his efforts to build a uniquely broad coalition--encompassing everyone from secular leftists to ultra-Orthodox Jews--that would give wide support to his peace agenda. In accommodating elements such as Shas, he had sacrificed natural allies such as the leftist Meretz party, whose leader was forced out of the Cabinet as education minister.

Barak’s options now include forming a minority government that will be supportive but might not last, bringing the right-wing opposition Likud Party into a so-called unity government that would slow down negotiations with the Palestinians, or holding new elections.

Albright Says Summit’s Chances Not Dimmed

In Washington, where advance negotiating teams were arriving Sunday for preliminary talks, the Clinton administration voiced the hope that the Israeli prime minister could win popular support in Israel for a peace agreement.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright insisted that the political turmoil in Israel does not reduce the chances for success at Camp David.

“First of all, we have always known that this is . . . a high-stakes summit,” Albright said in an interview on ABC-TV’s “This Week.” But Clinton “felt that this was a time to go ahead, because there’s also a high stakes if we don’t go ahead. . . . The situation there is serious. It could unravel.”

American and other officials have warned of a spiral of deadly violence if this round of peace talks fails. On Sunday, Palestinians buried a young mother and her small son who were shot to death by Israeli soldiers protecting a Jewish settlement in Gaza. The Israeli army said the soldiers had come under fire and that a taxi carrying a Palestinian family got caught in the cross-fire. Israel apologized for what it termed a “terrible mistake.”

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Times staff writer Jim Mann in Washington contributed to this report.