Middle East Saying No to Arafat

Barely visible behind a lectern in Tel Aviv's Yad Eliyahu basketball arena, the diminutive Yitzhak Shamir struggled to make his voice heard. His Likud bloc must agree to share power with Labor, he pleaded, "to be united against the danger of a Palestinian state." But even that potent argument elicited little but jeers from hundreds of angry members of the right-wing Likud bloc's central committee. Cheers rang out only when Ariel Sharon, the big and assertive leader of the party's hard-liners, called for a narrow coalition without left-leaning Labor. "People in Labor say we must talk to the P.L.O.," he shouted. "That is not our stance." The raucous crowd screamed back its approval.

But shortly after 3 a.m. last Wednesday, party members grudgingly capitulated to Shamir's proposal to form another national-unity government with the Labor Party. Shamir had vowed to give up his mandate to form a government if he lost. Later the same day, Labor's central committee, also divided over the wisdom of the party's casting its lot with Likud, ratified the coalition proposal. Seven weeks of wrangling followed inconclusive elections on Nov. 1, but the U.S. decision to open a dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization precipitated Israel's warring leaders into a second consecutive government of opposing ideologies. The two parties converged on one overriding fundamental: no dealing with the P.L.O.

The new government may be called national unity, but it will lean distinctly to the right. Both parties agreed to strict limits on the steps Israel would take toward peace. In a nine-page coalition contract, Likud and Labor flatly rejected recent proposals in P.L.O. chairman Yasser Arafat's peace campaign, saying the Israeli government "will not negotiate with the P.L.O." Instead, the pact reiterated Likud's long-standing call for direct talks with Israel's Arab neighbors, such as Jordan, and adopted Labor's offer to include non- P.L.O. Palestinians who live in the occupied territories. "We must do everything to say to America, to the Soviet Union, to Europe, to the Arabs, that in this difficult hour the people of Israel are united and forming one government," declared the new Prime Minister.

Shamir is the clear winner in Israel's battle to control a new and more complicated diplomatic environment. To cement his authority, Shamir refused to repeat the 1984 unity agreement under which each party in turn held the Prime Minister's chair. Reinforcing the government's shift to the right is the appointment of Likud's Moshe Arens, the hawkish former Ambassador to Washington, to replace Labor leader Shimon Peres as Foreign Minister in Shamir's 26-member Cabinet. Peres, under strong pressure from his party to ensure a government bailout of the troubled Histadrut labor federation and the kibbutz movement, the twin pillars of Labor support, opted instead for the finance portfolio. Peres insists he will continue to speak out on foreign policy issues as leader of the Labor Party. But it will be Shamir and Arens who finally give Israel one official voice on diplomatic matters.