ISRAEL . . . FRIENDLY FIRE THREATENS SYRIA PEACE
Dramatic internal dissension over the past 24 hours has stalled Israel's progress toward peace with Syria, the missing-link deal in the Middle East peace. The ruling Labor Party today submitted a parliamentary resolution that would tie Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's hands in the negotiations, capping a weeks' long movement by hawkish Israelis to keep the heavily settled Golan Heights from falling under Syrian control. The move was a rebuke to Rabin, Labor's own leader. In response, he has threatened to drop the peace talks altogether -- and to call a vote of confidence in his peace plan that, if negative, could topple the Labor government. By this morning, according to TIME Jerusalem reporter Robert Slater, neither side had budged. "People in (Rabin's) own party don't want to see Israel get off the Golan entirely, and that's the price Rabin appears ready to pay for an agreement."
