Battle For The Center

Netanyahu faces uphill fight, with adversaries on left, right.

DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

rime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu, forced to
accede to early elections,
embarked this week on a
daunting struggle to recapture the
popular and political appeal that cat-
apulted him to the national leader-
ship less than three years ago.
The struggle will be long:
Netanyahu and the Labor Party leader,
Ehud Barak, agreed on a 4 1/2-month
campaign, with the election set for
Monday, May 17. If there is a runoff in
the race for prime minister, as is widely
expected, it will take place June 1.
The struggle will also be difficult:
Netanyahu is already trailing in the
polls behind Barak and both of the
two men likely to head a centrist party
— Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and Dan
Meridor.
And Netanyahu's Likud Party has
been weakened by defections.
After Meridor's announcement last
week that he would leave to mount a
challenge from the center, Ze'ev
"Benny" Begin made his own
announcement on Monday. The son
of the late founder and longtime
leader of the Likud, Menachern Begin,

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26 Detroit Jewish News

Clockwise from top left: Ehud Barak; Amnon Lipkin-Shahak (A profile begins
on page 33); Uzi Landau; Ze'ev Begin; Binyamin Netanyahu; Dan Meridor
(A profile begins on page 31)

said he would form a new, right-wing
bloc and run for the prime minister-
ship at its head.
Two other popular Likud figures,
Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai
and Communications Minister Limor
Livnat, went public this week with
their separate soul-searchings over
whether to quit the Likud and seek
safe havens in the emerging centrist
grouping.
But Netanyahu is a fighter. Even
those who malign him do not deny
that. He came from way behind in
1996, after the assassination of
Yitzhak Rabin, to snatch the prime

ministership that Rabin's successor,
Shimon Peres, thought was firmly in
his grasp.
And Netanyahu is the sitting ten-
ant. The dual persona of underdog
and incumbent is, in the view of some
pros, the optimal starting point for a
tough election campaign.
As prime minister, with four long
months at his disposal, Netanyahu can
still pull an ace or two from his sleeve
— and all the other wannabes are
undisguisedly anxious at this prospect.
So, for instance, when military offi-
cials announced Tuesday that the
South Lebanon Army, Israel's surro-

gate force just across the border,
would be evacuating two positions
near the town of Jezzine, a wave of
speculation swept the political com-
munity: Was this the start of a unilat-
eral withdrawal by the Israel Defense
Forces from the security zone in
southern Lebanon?
Fueling the speculation was a deci-
sion by the premier to meet with a
group of bereaved mothers who have
been demonstrating in Jerusalem to
demand new government thinking on
the Lebanon quagmire.
Israel's accidental killing last week
of a mother and six of her children in
an artillery barrage, and Hezbollah's
subsequent Katyusha rocket barrage
against the Israeli border communities
of Kiryat Shmona and Kfar Blum
have once again pushed southern
Lebanon to the top of the public's
concerns.
There can be little doubt that a
decision by the government to with-
draw would be widely welcomed.
The public has been divided until
now over the wisdom of a unilateral
pullback. Many people accept the offi-
cial wisdom that to withdraw without
a negotiated deal with the Syrians
would be merely to invite the
Hezbollah to take up positions along
the border fence and resume its rock-