Unseemly Spat

By Jill Smolowe

From the outset, the showdown threatened to topple Israel's 14-month-old "national unity" government. The crisis began early in the week when Israeli Minister for Industry and Trade Ariel Sharon publicly accused Prime Minister Shimon Peres of "unparalleled cynicism" in his handling of secret Middle East peace negotiations. Two days later Peres struck back. His ultimatum: Sharon would either have to apologize for the verbal assault or face dismissal, a move that would almost certainly dissolve the coalition government and probably force new elections. Sharon testily countered by offering up a brief "apology." Enraged, Peres dismissed the gesture as inadequate and insincere. He demanded that Sharon apologize for six specific accusations he had made in recent days. "There is a clear attempt here to humiliate me," Sharon snapped. "You will not succeed."

Over the next 29 hours, intermediaries shuttled between the two men in an attempt to find a face-saving compromise that might keep the government intact. Finally, Sharon sent a letter to Peres, signed "with great respect," that while mentioning all six of the offending charges, stopped short of making a formal apology. It was apparently enough to persuade Peres to back off. At 11:59 p.m. Thursday, word went out that the shaky union between Peres' left-of-center Labor Party and the rightist Likud bloc, to which Sharon belongs, had survived.

The unseemly spat between Sharon and Peres did little to derail the Prime Minister's recent efforts to breathe life into the Middle East peace process. Peres put Sharon on notice that attacks on government policy will not be tolerated. He also cleared the way for continued talks with Jordan's King Hussein. Despite Peres' repeated denials that he had met secretly with Hussein in Paris last month, the Prime Minister admitted for the first time that "secret negotiations" have been under way between Israel and Jordan. That news came as Jordan extended an olive branch to Syria, thus perhaps paving the way for a Syrian role in Hussein's peace brokering. While the Israeli crisis was in full cry, Terry Waite, an adviser to Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie, flew to Beirut to try to negotiate the release of four American hostages.

Why Peres chose last week to square off against Sharon remains a matter of speculation. Strident attacks by Sharon against Peres' peace initiatives are nothing new. Moreover, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, the Likud leader who is scheduled to take over the prime ministership in October 1986, had warned that Sharon's dismissal would ensure the collapse of the government. Peres' actions led many to conclude that a government split-up was precisely what he had in mind. With his popularity rating running at a record 67.2%, Peres perhaps hoped to form a narrow-based government without Likud. But the small religious parties, by stepping in as mediators, clearly signaled their desire to hold together the coalition.

In the end there were gains and losses on both sides. While Peres extracted the demanded apology, many Laborites were miffed that he had failed to dump Sharon. Despite the apology, Sharon showed that he, not Shamir, would decide how long the coalition survives. With the Likud's Herut Party scheduled to hold its biennial convention in January, Sharon is now in a better position to seize the party leadership. The only clear loser was Shamir. He managed to keep alive his chances to replace Peres as Prime Minister. But after last week's contretemps, few are betting that the government will last that long. --By Jill Smolowe. Reported by Roland Flamini and Robert Slater/Jerusalem

With reporting by Reported by Roland Flamini, Robert Slater/Jerusalem