ISRAEL PRESIDENT EZER WEIZMAN CALLS FOR EARLY ELECTIONS AT MEETING IN JERUSALEM, 1998-06-29 (photo)

Israeli President Ezer Weizman gestures as talks during meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar June 29. In response to a "limping" peace process Weizman called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu June 29 to hold elections saying, "The sooner we go to early elections, the sooner we'll know what the public thinks." Weizman's intervention followed two weeks of debate in Israel on whether to hold a referendum on any decision to withdraw from more of the West Bank, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East War. Though Weizman's ceremonial post gives him no power to set a date for polls, his suggestion dealt a blow to Netanyahu's political credibility. EH/NS