Almost Mission Impossible

Israeli Cabinet Member Ezer Weizman returned from a three-day trip to Cairo last week with a nasty row at home behind him and a handsome trophy before him: a tentative Egyptian commitment for a summit meeting later this spring between Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. That diplomatic breakthrough could signal the end of three years of "cold peace" between the two countries. Egypt opposed the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, and following the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut three months later, recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv. Now, with the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in its final weeks, the Egyptians were ready for an improvement in relations.

At home, Weizman's trip precipitated an open fight within Israel's seven-month-old National Unity government. Peres had allowed Weizman to accept the Egyptian government's invitation because the former Defense Minister played an important role in the 1979 Camp David peace talks, and is generally thought to be the Egyptians' favorite Israeli politician. To assuage the feelings of Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, leader of the Likud bloc and the next Prime Minister under the Labor-Likud coalition agreement, Peres described the Weizman mission as a "private visit." That was agreeable to Shamir until word got out that Weizman was hoping to discuss a possible summit meeting. In a talk with Likud activists, Shamir declared that Weizman, a member of the small Yahad Party, had decided that "he has been crowned Israel's messiah of peace." Replied Weizman the next day: "I suggest that we not go too deeply into heavenly terminology. Better a messiah of peace than a god of war."

Peres, who had not anticipated an open fight, was surprised when the Cabinet voted 11 to 10 against the Weizman trip, with two ministers abstaining and two absent. Furious, he told a colleague, "One cannot work this way." In effect, Peres gave the Cabinet an ultimatum: if it did not back him on the i'ssue, he would pull his party out of the coalition and try to form a Labor-run government, a threat that has some support among Labor Party members. With the withdrawal of the Israeli army from southern Lebanon almost complete and the state of the economy gradually improving, Peres' popularity is rising. A recent poll in the newspaper Ma 'ariv found that 47.2% of those questioned support Peres, up from 42.4% in January and 27.9% last August. However, relations between the Labor Party and the Likud bloc, which have been tense under the unprecedented power-sharing arrangement, reached an all-time low as a result of the so-called Weizman affair.

Peres resolved the impasse with Shamir by ordering a telephone canvass of the entire Cabinet, and won a vote of 13 to 12 in favor of the Weizman trip, with Religious Affairs Minister Yosef Burg of the National Religious Party and Minister Without Portfolio Yigal Hurvitz of the Ometz Party casting the deciding votes. The Prime Minister received the good news as he left a meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy, who is laying the groundwork for a visit next month by Secretary of State George Shultz.

Nobody expects the Israeli-Egyptian summit to take place until the two sides are certain that it will be at least a marginal success. More immediately, Peres and his Labor colleagues realize they must work hard to soothe the Likud's feelings. In a similar vein, Weizman complained to Mubarak that a recent attack on Shamir in an Egyptian newspaper was not conducive to improving relations between the two countries; an obliging Mubarak called in a group of Cairo editors and told them to tone things down.