OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 7 November — Tough-talking former Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in as caretaker foreign minister yesterday as the country prepared for early elections in which he hopes to lead the right to victory. Netanyahu, the hard-liner who has criticized Ariel Sharon for being too soft on the Palestinians, returned to political office after three years on the outside yesterday.
One of Netanyahu’s first moves in office was to tell Israeli Army radio that the United States’ latest proposed peace plan, the so-called road map, is "not on the agenda" because, he said, of the likelihood of a US attack on Iraq. It is a sign of the grim future the peace process now faces as Sharon and Netanyahu jockey for position ahead of the elections.
Netanyahu, who is expected to square off soon against Sharon in a bid to lead their right-wing Likud party, immediately hit the campaign trail. He said on public television he regretted Israel had not already expelled Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in retaliation for Palestinian attacks. Netanyahu said a US strike on Iraq would provide an ideal cover to oust Arafat during the upheaval in the region, but the media-savvy heavyweight said a victory on the diplomatic front was as crucial as on the military.
"We must convince world opinion of the righteousness of our cause and win over the battle for world opinion," he said in his first ministerial address.
"Our enemies have managed through their lies to convince (the world) that they have the right to kill us. We must stop justifying ourselves and re-establish the truth: this is the central goal of our foreign policy," he said.
That set alarm bells ringing among the Palestinians. "This government is perhaps the worst ever to govern Israel until now, and all those who do not want the peace process and want to pursue the aggression and occupation are part of it," senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath said in Cairo. Newspapers in the Arab world were full of equally grim predictions for the two-year Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
Arafat, already effectively isolated from the diplomatic scene by hawkish Sharon, tried to strike a defiant note against Netanyahu. "No one can expel me from my homeland," he said in Ramallah, where his offices are slowly being rebuilt after an Israeli siege in September. "They must remember that I am President Arafat."
Two Israeli settlers were killed by a suspected Palestinian gunman in the Gaza Strip yesterday — a reminder that the elections come in the midst of the Palestinian intifada. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. The gunman was shot dead by a security guard. Late Tuesday, two young Palestinians were killed by Israeli tank fire in Rafah on the Egypt-Gaza border, after a crowd of youths pelted tanks and bulldozers with stones. (The Independent)
