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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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072489
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07248900.026
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1990-09-17
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WORLD, Page 28ISRAELWhy Is This Man So Glum?Peres and Shamir part ways over a controversial peace plan
Israel's national unity government is an apt reflection of the
population it serves: argumentative, divisive and incapable of
achieving consensus on how to deal with the Palestinian question.
Now the latest attempt at unity is faltering after seven months,
as the country's two major parties bump heads over the future
course of a peace plan that calls for elections in the occupied
territories. Bowing to pressures from hard-liners within his Likud
bloc, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir two weeks ago saddled the
proposal with conditions that are anathema to the Palestinians.
Labor Party leaders responded last week by voting to quit the
government. The move, yet to be ratified by the party's
1,300-member Central Committee, threatens not only to wreck the
coalition but also to kill the peace plan.
Arguing that the basic proposal was still intact, Shamir called
Labor's impending withdrawal "misguided." Labor leader Shimon Peres
countered that "there is no reason to remain in the government,"
but invited Shamir to "retract" the appended conditions, which
include barring East Jerusalem's 140,000 Palestinian residents from
participating in the elections. The Bush Administration signaled
its irritation by reviving talk of an international peace
conference, an option repellent to Shamir. In a New York Times
interview, Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, called the Likud stipulations a "deadly blow," but
he did not torpedo the plan.
Labor's decision to delay the Central Committee vote until
perhaps early August was viewed as an attempt to seek
reconciliation. Labor's reluctance to leave the government is not
surprising; a recent opinion poll indicates that a new election
would result in victory for Likud.
The U.S. struggled to keep the plan afloat, but each move
served only to further sour relations with Israel. When Washington
passed word that it hoped the Israeli government would remain
intact, Labor leaders denounced the bid as a "gross interference
in Israel's internal affairs." When the Bush Administration
described as "senseless and tragic" a Palestinian attack on an
Israeli bus two weeks ago that resulted in 14 deaths, Israeli
officials were furious that the U.S. had not denounced the act as
terrorism. And when a U.S. official implied that Israel and the
P.L.O., using American intermediaries, had engaged in secret
contacts, Labor and Likud responded with a unified denial. This
week a State Department delegation had been scheduled to travel to
Israel in hopes of preserving the government and the peace plan,
but the trip was scrubbed after U.S. officials received assurances
that the Israelis would resolve the two difficult issues among
themselves.