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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Resignation Big Blow To Peace Talks Israeli Foreign Minister Angry, Frustrated With Lack Of Progress

Knight-Ridder

An angry Foreign Minister David Levy announced his resignation Sunday in a blow that endangered the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and threatened to deep-freeze the peace process.

“I’ve had enough. Period,” Levy said at a news conference in Tel Aviv, citing his frustrations with the lack of movement in implementing peace accords and the government’s failure to help Israel’s poor in outlying cities.

Ironically, it is Levy’s resignation that will almost surely set back the already moribund talks with the Palestinians. Without Levy, Netanyahu’s ruling base shrinks to a majority of only one in parliament and among those are people who fiercely oppose any land concessions to the Palestinians.

Levy, 60, could reconsider - he has 48 hours to do so and has once before withdrawn his resignation.

A Moroccan-born former bricklayer, he has been the leading moderate voice in government cabinet. But, Levy said, his opinions were ignored in discussions over how Israel handles negotiations with the Palestinians and the wider Arab world.

“There are those (in the government) who think they can gain another week, another month, another two weeks,” by delaying peace talks. Such delays, Levy said, mean “we will have to give in later, under more difficult conditions.”

Without Levy’s Gesher party in the government, Netanyahu’s coalition drops to 61 out of 120 members in parliament, with many in his own Likud party openly calling for new elections. Netanyahu, looking pale and drawn Sunday night, said at his own news conference in Jerusalem that he still hoped Levy would return to his post, but if he didn’t, the government would carry on. Asked if he would call new elections, the prime minister replied: “I think this coalition is much more stable than people think.”

The Clinton administration, which has had strained relations with the Netanyahu government, withheld comment on the resignation and its impact. “Basically, it’s an internal matter,” said White House spokesman Joe Lockhart.

The State Department announced that Assistant Secretary of State Dennis Ross would go ahead with a previously scheduled trip to Israel and the Middle East to try to jumpstart the stalled peace talks.

In the last four years, Israel has signed peace agreements with the Palestinians and with Jordan, but implementation of those agreements has bogged down in large part because Netanyahu is not as committed to the endeavor as was his predecessor, Yitzhak Rabin. Friction with the Palestinians has been mostly over security and land.

Netanyahu said Sunday that the talks would continue and coalition members who oppose the next step - further Israeli troop withdrawals from the West Bank - won’t bring down his hard-line government because “they don’t want the left back in power … and put Israel back to pre-1967 borders on all front.”

Prior to the 1967 Six-Day War, Jordan controlled the West Bank and east Jerusalem and Syria held the Golan Heights. Israel now controls all that territory with the exception of seven West Bank cities ceded to the Palestinian Authority.

Following Levy’s announcement, many questioned whether Netanyahu’s government could survive for long. One test could come today: Netanyahu announced his intention to bring the government’s budget to a vote in parliament then.