Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' Labor Party failed last week to muster enough votes in the 120-seat Knesset to force Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to call early elections. As a result, Peres was thwarted, at least for the moment, in his drive to convene an international peace conference on the Middle East.
The friction was too much for Communications Minister Amnon Rubinstein, who pulled his centrist, three-member Shinui Party out of the ruling coalition. Rubinstein was particularly incensed over the Likud bloc's frantic deal making with the religious parties, including a Likud promise to support legislation requiring overseas conversions to Judaism to...
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