Edition: U.S. / Global

Israelis Plead for Unity Government That Excludes the Religious Parties

By JOEL BRINKLEY, Special to the New York Times
Published: November 11, 1988

A growing number of Israelis are calling for another ''national unity'' government of the Likud and Labor parties that would exclude the religious parties.

With petition drives, letter-writing campaigns, newspaper advertisements and telegrams, thousands of Israelis are asking and in some cases begging President Chaim Herzog to ''stop the disaster of the establishment of a government with the religious,'' as an elderly woman from Haifa put it in a letter to the President this week. It was just one of thousands of letters he has received.

''We, voters of the right, left and center in the '88 elections demand the leadership of our parties to immediately halt the negotiations with the religious parties to establish a narrow government,'' a large advertisement in the daily newspaper Yediot Achronot, signed by 50 academics from universities across the country, said on Tuesday.

And a Tel Aviv woman standing in a city park Wednesday gathered 721 signatures in three hours for a petition asking the President to ''convene an emergency government of Labor and Likud'' to prevent the formation of a government with the religious parties ''that was not what the voters wanted.'' Concern Over Stalemate

Before the elections Nov. 1, many Israelis expressed concern that the elections would end in a stalemate, as they did in 1984, leaving no option but to form another Labor-Likud coalition government like the one that has tried to govern for the last four years. Locked together in a hostile alliance, Labor and Likud bickered endlessly and accomplished almost nothing, particularly in the last two years.

The election did end in a stalemate. Labor and parties of the left won 49 seats in the 120-member Parliament while Likud and parties of the right won 47, in both cases short of the 61-seat majority needed to form a cabinet. The four religious parties won 18 seats, making them the king makers. Whichever party they choose will be the one that takes over the Government.

Now both Labor and Likud ''are offering everything, selling their grandmother,'' to persuade the religious parties to join their coalition, a senior Government official familiar with the coalition negotations said.

As an example, Moshe Peretz, spokesman for the Shas Party and the brother of the party leader, Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz, said the Labor Party had offered Shas four Cabinet positions, and ''they said Rabbi Peretz could be Deputy Prime Minister,'' among other blandishments. Outrage Is Growing

Israelis who are not very religiously observant - by far the vast majority of the population - are growing more and more outraged as the Israeli press reports the new promises that are being made to the religious parties every day.

All week long, the three rigorously Orthodox parties - Shas, Agudat Israel and Degel HaTorah - have been saying they are wavering between Labor and Likud, and as a result both parties are promising them more and more. The fourth religious party, the National Religious Party, has already declared its preference for Likud.

President Herzog set Saturday night as the deadline for the parties to make up their minds if they would support Labor or Likud. He will give whichever of the two parties gets the greatest support the opportunity to form a new government.

''As of today, you have both sides giving the religious everything they want and more,'' the senior official said. ''They're getting the best deal imagineable,'' meaning that whichever party ends up forming the new Government will have given the religious parties control over significant parts of it. Labor Offers More

Labor has offered more than Likud because, given a choice with equal offers, the religious parties have said they would pick Likud.

A full-page advertisement in the newspaper Maariv by the Public Committee for a Constitution in Israel said today: ''The national unity Government was bad. The proposed alternative is a disaster.''

But Mr. Peretz of Shas says the people who are complaining ''don't have any right to settle in Israel if they are willing to throw away the religious heritage passed on from our ancestors.''

''Israel was given to the Jewish people for one overwhelming reason,'' he added. ''That is, to live life as described in the Torah.'' Complaint Over Yeshivas

A common theme among the public complaints is that 20,000 children of the religious who are enrolled in yeshivas, or religious schools, are exempted from military service while every other young person in the nation must serve.

And yet these ''non-Zionist'' parties that barely recognize the Government of Israel as a legitimate body ''will be able to determine with a sweep of their hand the fate of hundreds of thousands of Israelis, without their carrying the burden of responsibility for their decisions,'' read a petition drafted by a spontaneously formed group of nonpartisan Jerusalem youths.

Members of the group, called We Have to Change, stood outside a Jerusalem department store this afternoon furiously gathering signatures. Variety of Proposals

The President's office calculates that 64 percent of the letters it has received are calling for a new national unity government to exclude the religious parties. Another 10 percent complain about inclusion of the religious or ''non-Zionist'' parties without offering a solution. And another 17 percent advocate reforming the electoral system to prevent situations like this from occurring again. The rest protest the inclusion of far-right nonreligious parties in the new government.

The President's office has not kept an exact count of the letters, but Mr. Herzog said ''it's one of the biggest onslaughts we've ever received.''

''It is inconceivable that a minority of 15 percent of the population will control 85 percent of us,'' one letter said, complaining among other things that members of religious parties would call for an end Israel's daylight savings time in the summer because the late daylight hours conflict with accustomed Sabbath hours - sunset Friday night to sunset Saturday night.

A Raanana man sent a petition with 75 signatures, saying: ''I got these in less than three hours, going house to house. With just two exceptions, all visits were successful, and the people were from all political areas. More people are going to join this initiavtive, and we will send you more signatures every few days.''

The petition said, ''We appeal to you not to let the non-Zionist parties determine the fate of the State of Israel.''

A Jerusalem couple wrote, ''Because of the election of the religious, the future looks black to us.''

And the chairman of an organization called the Central Parents Committee, Jerusalem Sector, wrote, ''It is inconceivable that the ideals and education of our youth will be in the hands of a minister not in tune with the Zionist movement.'' The religious parties are demanding control of the Education Ministry, among others.

Mr. Peretz said Israelis would be grateful to the religious parties in the end. Of the changes his party wants to make, he said: ''If they don't like it at first, soon they will come to enjoy it. They will thank us.''