
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 7, 1990                   TAG: 9003071982
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: JERUSALEM                                LENGTH: Short

ISRAELI CABINET DELAYS PEACE-PROPOSAL VOTE

Ministers of the right-wing Likud bloc and the left-of-center Labor Party clashed today over U.S. Middle East peace proposals, but a Cabinet vote on the plan was postponed until the weekend.

Labor leaders said that if Likud rejected the American proposals at Sunday's Cabinet session, they would ask Labor's Central Committee to vote the next day on leaving the government and forming a new coalition with small religious and left-wing parties.

Today's debate focused on the composition of a Palestinian delegation to preliminary peace talks with Israel in Cairo that would prepare the ground for elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Mayor Teddy Kollek gathered his City Council in a Jewish neighborhood built on the edge of Arab east Jerusalem and criticized the United States for opposing Jewish settlement there.

For 23 years, Israel and the United States have disagreed about the status of Jerusalem, a city fought over for centuries because it is holy to Jews, Christians and Moslems.

The United States and most other countries have never recognized Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem, but U.S. presidents have previously not challenged Israel's building programs there.

-Associated Press

by CNB