An incensed Foreign Minister Shimon Peres threatened to "take a vacation" to consider leaving Israel's national unity coalition government after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon again refused to allow him to meet with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat until there are 48 hours without violence. While his Labor colleagues gave Peres strong backing, analysts agreed that the Foreign Minister is not likely to bolt anytime soon, since his party is not perceived as strong enough to venture into the political wilderness. There were signs this evening that a compromise was in the works, and reports that the meeting could take place tomorrow if quiet persists.

Peres boycotted this morning's weekly Cabinet meeting after Sharon phoned him at 7:30 am and said that he intended to cancel the Foreign Minister's planned meeting with Arafat, scheduled for 5 pm Sunday evening. Peres sat in a separate room brooding and conferring with colleagues, as unsuccessful mediation efforts to broker a compromise were made, unsuccessfully.

In an address to Labor ministers later in the afternoon, a humiliated Peres said it was "inconceivable" that Sharon would "make a joke out of his Foreign Minister in front of the whole world." He expressed disbelief that Sharon approved the meeting the night before and then changed his mind the following morning. He complained that Israel was losing credibility with the world and with the Palestinian Authority. "Why do we need a cease-fire to discuss a cease-fire," he asked rhetorically. Labor Ministers threatened to also walk out of the government if Peres left. But they agreed to meet with Sharon Monday to discuss the issue.

In addition to standing up to his Foreign Minister and Defense Minister, Sharon resisted strong pressure from senior U.S. Administration officials, who have been urging a meeting to ease Israeli-Palestinian tensions and thus facilitate formation of a coalition which includes Arab states. But he was also pressured by the threatened walkout of the large Shas religious faction, which said that it would leave the government coalition if the Peres-Arafat meeting took place. And a strong assault by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, backed by an apparent majority of government ministers, including many from his own party, also turned up the heat on Sharon to cancel the meeting.

Sharon explained his decision to cancel the meeting by saying that his minimal conditions of two days of quiet had not been met. He cited the firing of mortars on a Jewish settlement the previous night, in which one shell fell dangerously close to a campfire attended by dozens of Israeli youngsters. He was also incensed by the reported release of Atef Abiat, the Palestinian suspected of carrying out last Thursday's drive-by killing of Sarit Amrani, a mother of three, after brief questioning by the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians claimed that Abiat was still in custody, but Israel television filmed him in his car, denying responsibility for the killing but expressing his willingness to sacrifice himself for the "holy" cause.

In televised interviews, Sharon fiercely attacked Arafat, describing him as the father of modern terrorism, recalling his hijacking of airliners in the sixties and seventies. "Arafat is leading a coalition of terror and strategy of terror but we are prepared to give him a chance. That is why I suggested that the Peres-Arafat meeting take place after 48 hours of quiet," Sharon told the Fox television network. He also presented his stand to Dan Kurtzer, American ambassador to Israel. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke with both Sharon and Peres today and expressed confidence that the Peres-Arafat meeting would take place in the near future.

Channel Two reported that Sharon succeeded in soothing Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, also of the Labor Party, by assuring him that a Peres-Arafat meeting could take place late tomorrow if there were no new terrorist incidents in the interim. Channel One cited a source close to Sharon as saying that Peres and his party would not dare leave the government, quoting a popular Israeli song: "It's not a kibbutz here. It's cold, cold outside."

However, the 48 hour cease-fire requirement may have been reset by fresh and fierce gunbattles erupted which early this evening near Ramallah on the West Bank, as an IDF patrol reportedly came under fire and then responded to the attack near the Jewish community of Ofra in Samaria. A Molotov cocktail was thrown near the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem. Palestinian gunfire was also reported near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

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