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The dramatic change is due in part to Peres' deft handling of the nation's problems. But it has also flowed from a conscious political decision to live up to his agreement with Shamir. Despite strong pressure from within his party, he resisted the temptation to force showdowns with his coalition partners, which might have broken the accord and led to early elections. Several times, angered over attacks on his performance by various Likud ministers, he demanded an apology. And each time the Likud, eager to avoid a fight that might give Peres an excuse to resign and renege on the agreement, forced the offending minister to issue retractions.
There is a real chance, to be sure, that some of Peres's accomplishments could come undone. Renewed hostilities by Lebanese Shi'ite militiamen, members of the fanatical, Iranian-backed Hizballah, or Party of God, and the Palestine Liberation Organization have raised questions as to whether Israel can stay out of southern Lebanon after all. In a well-planned military operation recently, Hizballah fighters attacked seven outposts of the Israeli-backed militia known as the South Lebanon Army. Israel responded by massing troops and tanks along the Lebanese border. Although only about 200 men were sent five miles into Lebanon to retake an S.L.A. outpost, an Israeli military source says a much larger operation was initially planned but was scaled down when the U.S. expressed concern about the possible effects of another Israeli thrust into Lebanon. Still, Peres can justifiably take pride in the fact that only two Israeli soldiers have been reported missing in southern Lebanon since the June 1985 withdrawal, in contrast to more than 600 lost in the previous three years.
Similarly, Israel's economic recovery is far from complete. Besides cutting the inflation rate, Peres reduced imports and froze the exchange rate of the Israeli shekel. In July 1985 he pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of persuading the dominant Histradut union federation to renounce the cherished system of index-linked pay increases. One crucial question now is whether the Histradut will continue to cooperate with the government once Peres ceases to be Prime Minister.
As for his chief foreign policy accomplishments, they came late and were limited in scope. Last month's summit with Mubarak in Alexandria was remarkably friendly. But even though the Egyptian President agreed to name an ambassador to represent his country in Tel Aviv, he was not prepared to go much further in normalizing relations with Israel for fear of adverse Arab reaction. On the Palestinian issue, Peres expressed his willingness to negotiate with a delegation of Jordanians and "authentic" Palestinians. That meant that he was ready to talk to moderates with ties to the Palestine Liberation Organization but not directly to the P.L.O. leadership. Any chance of progress in that direction, however, collapsed last February when King Hussein of Jordan angrily broke off a political alliance with Yasser Arafat over the P.L.O. chief's unwillingness to accept United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338, which implicitly recognize Israel's right to exist.