'Benny' Begin Attacks From The R ight
L1 NAOMI SEGAL
/Javish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
A
former member of Israeli
Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu's Cabinet has
announced plans to quit the
Likud Party and spearhead a right-
wing challenge to the premier.
\__,
Ze'ev "Benny" Begin, who resigned
C as science minister in 1997 when
Netanyahu agreed to turn over most of
Hebron to Palestinian self-rule, could
weaken the premier in the May 17 elec-
tions by splitting the right-wing vote.
Announcing his candidacy at a
news conference Monday, Begin said
the national camp needed a candidate
\_, who would protect its interests.
/_,
A geologist by training, Begin, 55,
has represented the Likud in the Knesset
since entering politics a decade ago.
The son of Likud founder
Menachem Begin attacked Netanyahu
and his continuation of the Oslo
peace process. Begin said his candida-
cy is the "only alternative today to a
way that would most certainly lead to
the establishment of a PLO-and-
Hamas state, which will bring neither
peace nor security."
Begin, whose father forged Israel's
1979 peace treaty with Egypt, a move
that included Israel's return of the Sinai,
warned that going down "Wye River"
would only lead to ceding more land to
(( those hoodlums" — a reference to the
Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
Right-wing reaction to Begin's
announced candidacy was mixed.
Some leaders of the settler move-
ment welcomed Begin's move.
Others, including National Religious
Party leader Yitzhak Levy, said it
could split the right wing and play
into the interests of the left.
With at least five people so far
expected to try to unseat Netanyahu in
the upcoming elections, it appears
unlikely that any candidate will gain
50 percent in the first round of voting.
The decision to dissolve
Parliament and advance the date for
elections came after far-right coali-
tion members, angered by the gov-
ernment's land-for-security deal with
the Palestinians, joined forces with
opposition legislators who were frus-
trated with the freeze in the peace
process.
Netanyahu sought this week to rally
the Likud rank and file around him,
giving a fiery speech before the Likud
Central Committee that was meant to
appeal to hawkish sensitivities.
He said the "real task is not the
election," but what will come after,
when Israel will have to negotiate
eting attacks from there.
But if the official line were
to shift toward the unilateral
withdrawal option, a good deal
of public opinion would cer-
tainly shift with it.
The politicians crowding the
center have been heard voicing
apprehensions, too, that
Netanyahu, despite his present-
ly hawkish posture, may find a
way, during the next four
months, to make a break-
through in the peace process
with the Palestinians.
Certainly, that prospect has
not seemed likely in his initial
campaigning. In a speech Sunday
night to the Likud Central
Committee in Tel Aviv, the pre-
mier tongue-lashed both Yasser
Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is greeted by supporters in Tel Aviv Sunday.
Labor leader Barak, whom he
accused of being prepared to
exposed to the hurly-burly of a cam-
make far-reaching concessions.
On the domestic front,
paign.
But with Benny Begin preparing to
Netanyahu's calculation in engineer-
This is presumed to be the rea-
attack him from the hard-line right,
ing a long campaign seems to have
son
why
Barak — who is even more
and with the Oslo accords demonstra-
been that Shahak — who retired
directly
threatened
by Shahak — went
bly still supported by a substantial
earlier this year as IDF chief of staff
along
with
the
prime
minister on
majority of Israelis, Netanyahu might
and is currently the front-runner in
selecting
a
distant
date
for the elec-
yet tack to the left (or, more accurate-
the polls — will inevitably lose
tion.
By
law,
the
election
could have
ly, to the center) as the campaign
ground as he moves away from the
been
held
after
60
days,
or
as early as
moves ahead, seeking to undercut
glow of his military past and is
both Barak and Shahak.
with the Palestinians, the Syrians and
Lebanese.
they It w ill not be easy," Netanyahu
said, adding that Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yasser Arafat i s " talking
about a Palestinian state al ong the lines
of 1967, perhaps even a Palestinian
state along the borders of 1947, with
partition lines and the right of return
to areas within the Green Line."
To counter the talk about those
who were defecting from the Likud to
run against him, Netanyahu singled
out those assembled on the stage
beside him, including Foreign
Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense
Minister Yitzhak Mordechai.
But Mordechai, who is rumored to
be considering a defection, would not
confirm Monday that his presence at
the Likud Central Committee meeting
was a sign of his intention to remain
within the party. Cl
the end of February.
With only Knesset
member
Uzi Landau so far
J
having declared his candi-
,. dacy for the Likud leader-
2 ,- ship — Jerusalem Mayor
Ehud Olmert toyed with
the idea but dropped it —
Netanyahu is confident of
his standing inside the
party.
To his left, the much-
respected Meridor, a close
confidant of the late
Menachem Begin and later
of Yitzhak Shamir, is deter-
mined to deny Netanyahu
the premiership.
Both men, universally
upheld as honest and honor-
able, both with long and
intimate experience of work
alongside prime ministers,
asserted that Netanyahu is
not the man for the job.
Both plainly intend to keep on saying
so through the campaign.
While many of the pieces in the
newly evolving Israeli political jigsaw
are not yet in place, the election cam-
paign is shaping up as a bruising battle
between a beleaguered Netanyahu and
foes from left and right that are united
to dislodge him.
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199c,
Detroit Jewish News
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