May. 15, 2002
Former PM Netanyahu: I will defang PA state threat
By GIL HOFFMAN
Former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu expressed confidence yesterday that he will succeed in convincing both the nation and the government not to permit the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu told The Jerusalem Post that passing the resolution opposing the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan in Sunday's Likud central committee meeting was the first step in his effort to "defang" the threat of a Palestinian state.
"My positions may have seemed far out at first, but they eventually became government policy," Netanyahu said. "But it doesn't happen overnight. You cannot change the perspective of an entire country in one day, especially if [the inevitability of a state] has been repeated ad nauseam."
Netanyahu said his calls for ending Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's restraint policy, destroying the Palestinian Authority's infrastructure of terror, and entering Area A were all dismissed as crazy and extreme at first, but they were all adopted to great success. He predicted the same would happen with his recommendations of exiling PA Chairman Yasser Arafat and preventing a Palestinian state from being created.
However, a Dahaf Institute poll published yesterday suggested Netanyahu has a long a way to go. The poll found that 63 percent of Israelis and 43% of Likud supporters back Sharon's position that a Palestinian state should be created in the framework of a future peace agreement.
Among Likud supporters, 64% backed Sharon's effort to delay the anti-Palestinian state resolution, and 54% said Sharon should be the party's candidate for prime minister in the next election, compared to only 35% for Netanyahu.
While most Likud voters said their opinions of Sharon and Netanyahu had not been changed by the meeting, 24% said their impression of Sharon improved, and 20% said their opinion of Netanyahu changed for the worse.
To prepare for a face-off against either Sharon or Netanyahu, Labor Party chairman Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and possible Labor challengers Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg and MK Haim Ramon are set to unveil their diplomatic plans at today's Labor central committee meeting at Kibbutz Shefayim.
Ben-Eliezer's plan calls for initiating complete security separation from the Palestinians, with a wall but without setting a border or withdrawing the IDF until a diplomatic agreement is reached along the lines of the Clinton-Barak plan, but more conservative on the Jerusalem issue.
A spokeswoman for Ben-Eliezer denied reports the plan calls for foreign sovereignty on the Temple Mount.
Ramon advocates full separation, and Burg a full withdrawal from the territories. All of the Labor plans are intended to differentiate the party from the Likud.
Sharon's closest ally in the cabinet, Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin, said the poll proves Netanyahu's attacks on the prime minister will come back to haunt him when the Likud primary comes around next year.
"Arik Sharon is the most popular man in the Likud and the election will prove it," Rivlin said.
Netanyahu said he was not attacking Sharon, but defending the Likud platform, which has always opposed the establishment of a Palestinian state. He said the meeting strengthened Israel's hand in any future negotiations by making US and Europe aware that they must take into account the Israeli street and not just the Arab street.
"I do back up Sharon when I agree with him," Netanyahu said. "I give him fuller backing than he receives from anyone else in the world, but when he offers a Palestinian state unilaterally that will allow terrorism to be aimed at the heart of Israel, my duty is to say the right thing, whether popular or not."
Netanyahu said the central committee meeting was brought about by Sharon and could have been avoided if he would have joined him in accepting a compromise. His aides said he did not accept the compromises publicly, because the vote could not have been avoided and he did not want to speak ambivalently.
Channel 1 reported that Netanyahu's ally, MK Avraham Herschson, tried to convince him to call for a compromise from the podium, but his campaign chief, MK Yisrael Katz persuaded him not to. The report said the rivalry in the Netanyahu camp is growing.
Netanyahu admitted he made a mistake in responding to heckling from the crowd, but said he is only human and what they were saying hurt him personally, especially because many hecklers were at the meeting illegally.
"I was dealing with a subject profoundly critical to Israel and I saw people who don't belong to Likud deliberately thwarting a chance for it to be heard," Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu called upon Sharon not to ignore the meeting's decision. He said Sharon is wrong in saying a Palestinian state is inevitable or irrelevant. He warned of a state forced on Israel by the international community being "just around the corner." |
