Acoalition government of the Israel Labor Party and Likud formed following the 1984 Knesset election, which lasted until the 1988 Knesset election. Under the terms of the national unity agreement, Labor's Shimon Peres served as prime minister from 1984 to 1986, while Likud's Yitzhak Shamir served as foreign minister and deputy prime minister; the two rotated positions halfway through the government's tenure in 1986. The Government of National Unity took important steps toward alleviating inflation and withdrew most of the Israel Defense Forces from Lebanon. A variant of the Government of National Unity was formed following the 1988 election, but it lasted only until the spring of 1990. Ariel Sharon formed a Likud-Labor unity government in 2002 that lasted only until 2003. See ROTATION; WALL-TO-WALL COALITION.
Historical Dictionary of Israel. Bernard Reich David H. Goldberg. Edited by Jon Woronoff..