TEL AVIV, Oct. 20, Reuter: Likud party leader Yitzhak Shamir today becomes Prime Minister of Israel for the second time, taking over from Shimon Peres under a 1984 power sharing agreement.

After a policy speech to parliament, Shamir was expected to win its endorsement for his nine party governments in which Peres, head of the Labour Party, will replace him as Foreign Minister.

As Prime Minister for 11 months after Meacham Begin resigned in 1983, Shamir kept a costly occupation of Lebanon, failed to reduce triple digit annual inflation and made little progress towards thawing relations with Egypt.

Shamir, a guerrilla Chief in pre independence days and a former Mossad Intelligence Service Spymaster, has firmly rejected the idea of trading captured Arab territory in return for peace and said recently he was in no hurry to negotiate with Jordan.

Peres has threatened to pull out ‘of the new government unless peace moves which he initiated are maintained.

Under his tenure, the bulk of Israeli troops were pulled out of Lebanon, inflation was cut to its current annual rate of about 20 per cent and an arbitration accord was signed with Egypt on resolving the Taba border dispute.

Shamir and Peres agree to an unprecedented job rotation after the 1984 general election ended in a stalement Like Peres, Shamir will serve as Israel’s leader of 25 months,

The job swap was delayed three days as the two bickered over cabinet posts and other appointments, they reached a compromise last week and Shamir announced on Friday he had formed a government.

‘The new Prime Minister faces an immediate problem of trying to repatriate an Israeli airman whose plane crashed in an air raid on ‘Thursday against suspected Palestinian guerrilla positions in Lebanon.

General Amos Lapidot, Commander of the Air Force, said the captured officer was in the hands of a guerrilla organization which he did not name.

“We know he is alive and we regard the group holding him as responsible for his safety”, the General said, “We are very anxious over the crewman’s fate”.

Lapidot said the U.S. made F-4 Phantom jet crashed because one of the bombs it was carrying blew up, apparently due to a technical malfunction, and not because of ground fire.

The airman had been listed as missing in action despite claims by the Shi’lte Moslem movement that he had been captured. The jet’s other crew member was brought back to Israel in a daring helicopter rescue 90 minutes after he bailed out.

Article extracted from this publication >> October 24, 1986