Israel Time to Switch, Not Fight

With a mixed record, Peres prepares to give way to Shamir

Shortly before 9 a.m. this Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres will leave his office in Jerusalem for the short drive to the presidential residence. There, assuming that everything goes according to plan, the Labor Party leader will hand in his resignation to President Chaim Herzog, thus setting in motion a transfer of power that many Israelis had once doubted would ever take place. Under the terms of a power-sharing arrangement that Labor and the right-wing Likud bloc had forged two years ago, when they formed the present national unity government, Peres will exchange jobs with Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, head...

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