Intensive Israeli - Palestinian contacts on early Israeli elections

The Jordanian weekly al-Majd reported that intensive contacts were recently made between the Palestinian government and the leadership of the Israeli Labor Party in order to review certain matters relating to the early Israeli Knesset elections which will be held in the first half of 1999.

The paper quoted well-informed Palestinian sources as saying that the Palestinian government seeks through these contacts to make sure about the real position of the Israeli Labor Party on the establishment of a Palestinian state after the end of the provisional period, especially as the former Labor Party government had repeatedly expressed its consent for establishing a Palestinian state.

On the other side, the Israeli Labor Party seeks to obtain the support of the Palestinian government for its candidates in the Israeli Knesset through asking Israeli Arabs to vote in favor of the Israeli Labor Party against its rivals in other Israeli parties.

However, Arab electors refrained from giving their votes to Shimon Peres in the previous elections because he was the Israeli prime minster during the Qana massacre in south Lebanon, resulting in Benjamin Netanyahu's winning of these elections but by a very small majority.