Israel's Labor Party Looks to a New Leader
PEACE PROSPECTS COULD GAIN. Next week, when Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin face off one last time in their bitter 18-year rivalry, much more will be at stake than the leadership of Israel's Labor Party. A victory by Rabin over party chieftain Peres could set the stage for a new government of national unity this summer and, ultimately, perhaps provide the sort of broad political support necessary for Israel to reach a peace settlement in the Middle East.
Under Israel's arcane electoral system, no party has ever been able to win a majority in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, and government has always been by coalition. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's government is no exception, but that could change if Rabin defeats Peres to head Labor. Ever since Peres engineered a failed Knesset effort to dump Shamir as prime minister in the spring of 1990--thereby severing a six-year Likud-Labor coalition--Shamir has refused to have anything to do with Labor or Peres. Instead, Shamir and his Likud government turned for support to religious and right-wing parties that have thrown up what the Bush administration considers among the biggest stumbling blocks to progress in the Middle East peace talks--insistence on expanding Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and Gaza--and put Israel increasingly at odds with the United States. Rabin is another story. Defense minister during the Likud-Labor coalition, he has a history of working with Shamir and believed it was a mistake to end Labor's political marriage of convenience with Likud. If Rabin takes over leadership of Labor, Shamir could abandon his alliance with the right-wing settlers and form a government of national unity with Rabin--one that would be much freer to negotiate the settlement issue with the Palestinians.
This assumes that Shamir will beat Rabin when national elections are held June 23. Although Rabin consistently outpolls Shamir by large margins, and is certainly the only Labor candidate who could defeat Shamir, a Labor victory over Likud seems unlikely because of Likud's grass-roots support from the religious parties. Rabin has a good shot this time to carry Labor's banner, in large part because Peres has failed in every one of his four efforts since 1977 to lead a Labor ticket to victory. Also, the party's first-ever nationwide primary election will take the decision away from the 1,000-plus Labor Party apparatchiks, whom Peres controlled, and throw the choice open to all 160,000 party members. While a surprise showing by two other minor candidates in the primary balloting could force a second-round runoff, Rabin should still emerge on top.
ISRAEL Housing Minister Ariel Sharon is challenging Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir for leadership of the Likud Party, but Shamir is the clear favorite to win. Sharon would like to do well enough in Likud's 3,400-member central committee to send a message to Shamir that he is a force to be reckoned with during the peace process and that Jewish settlement in the territories is sacrosanct.
L'AFFAIRE HABASH ENSNARES MITTERRAND. "They're all crazy," French President Fran cois Mitterrand said of top figures in his tottering administration. Crazy, perhaps, but hardly disqualified from running the country a little longer, Mitterrand has decided. Rather than dump Socialist Prime Minister Edith Cresson and key ministers right away amid the political storm over a bungled trip to France by Palestinian terrorist leader George Habash, the bruised president aims to hold the government together until after the Socialist Party's near-certain defeat in nationwide local elections next month. Then the Cresson team's days will be numbered. And Mitterrand's? He has buried his head in the political sand to avoid ridicule in the Habash affair, which has been portrayed to a skeptical French public as a blunder by senior officials making policy decisions without clearance from their political bosses. Yet the charge against the ministers, and Mitterrand himself, remains: If they knew of the terrorist chief's intended trip for medical treatment, they should have prevented it; if they did not know, as they claim, they have lost political control. Though the official explanations look transparent, it is clear that the trip by the Tunis-based mastermind of international hijackings and bombings was supposed to be kept secret. France's diplomatic instinct has long been to succor the Palestinians, and Mitterrand's government is said to want to use its influence with the Palestinians as a ticket to the Middle East peace process. But when the story broke, the government finessed an antiterrorist judge's inquiry and expelled Habash. The repercussions will be felt March 22 in local elections that loom like a guillotine for the ruling Socialists, and an electoral disaster for Mitterrand's party could accelerate parliamentary elections now set for the following March.
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