Labor Pains

Outback Steakhouse
Kidz 1(145z • Paparazzi.

Frustration over the peace process is making Israeli
voters took past domestic gains, and toward Likud
Party.

LARRY DERFNER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

A

Orchard Lake Road
North of Maple
West Bloomfield

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, Metsudat Ze'ev, Likud
headquarters, these are
happy days. "The feeling
here is one of great confi-
dence that we are about to return
to power," said Benny Shemer,
an oldtime Likud partisan.
The reason for the Likud's high
spirits is that the Israeli govern-
ment is deteriorating. Even the
Labor Party's own polls show
that the public is unhappy with
its leadership. The peace process
is symbolized mainly by terror.
Improvements in the quality of
life aren't felt or appreciated. La-
bor politicians are fighting among
themselves, andPrime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin is at the center of
the fray.
The themes of the last 2 1/2
years — "upheaval," "a new or-
der of priorities," "a new Middle
East" — have become tainted. As
it stands today, the reformers are
losing. A reaction has set in.
Whatever they may think in
Oslo, Israel's worst headache is
the peace process. Negotiations
were supposed to begin last week

on getting the al my out of the
Palestinians' midst in the West
Bank, but that seems an impos-
sible goal for now.
Military leaders told the Cab-
inet:
1) "Lebanonization," with
armed militias and a breakdown
in order, has arrived in the terri-
tories.
2) Islamic terror against Is-
raelis is likely to go up.
3) Yassir Arafat shows no in-
clination to disarm or fight
Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
4) The Jewish settlements in
the West Bank would be fright-
fully vulnerable if the army were
to hand over wide areas of its au-
thority to the Palestinian police.
In light of all this, Labor politi-
cians are coming up with new
ideas. Nissim Zvili, the party's
secretary general, said the army's
redeployment in the West Bank
should be put off until after the
November 1996 elections. Israelis
"are not ready for the risks which
the government is prepared to
take for peace," he said.

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THE JEWISH NEWS

Yitzhak Rabin gathers his notes to address a session of the Knesset.