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Netanyahu
Builds Platform on Arafat Ouster, Labor Wants Separation
OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, November 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Foreign
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, challenging to lead the right-wing Likud
party in Israel’s upcoming general election, called Tuesday,
November 12, for Yasser Arafat’s expulsion from the Palestinian
territories.
Meanwhile,
the three candidates for the centre-left Labor party’s leadership in
the January elections called for separation between the Jewish state
and the Palestinians, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Netanyahu
told a Likud convention in Tel Aviv that he would build his election
platform on expelling the Palestinian leader.
“The
first thing I will do as prime minister will be to expel Yasser
Arafat. I will expel Yasser Arafat from here. It's the necessary
condition to eradicate terrorism,” he said.
In
primaries later this month, the 300,000 registered members of Likud
are to elect either Prime Minister Ariel Sharon or his rival,
Netanyahu, to lead the party into an early general election called for
January 28.
Israeli
public television reported that agreement was reached at the Tel Aviv
convention for the loser of the primaries to fill the number two spot
in the party.
The
2,700 members of the Likud convention were meeting to confirm a
November 28 date for the primaries.
“Arik
and I will march together to lead Likud to a historic victory,” said
Netanyahu, using the prime minister's nickname, to loud applause from
delegates, many of whom then stood up for Sharon’s turn at the
podium.
The
prime minister implicitly criticized Netanyahu’s call for the ouster
of Arafat.
“We
will not obtain security through slogans and magic solutions,” said
Sharon, accusing his rival of being rash.
“We
will only obtain security through our determination to face up and act
with a cool head, in a reflective manner and with responsibility,”
said the incumbent Likud leader.
“The
people of Israel want a responsible leadership,” he said.
According
to a public television poll of more than 2,000 Likud members broadcast
late Tuesday, Sharon would win the primaries with 52 percent of the
vote against 34 percent for Netanyahu.
In
a television debate the same night, all three candidates vying to lead
the Labor party said Israel should be separated from the Palestinians.
With
only a week to go, the race for the party leadership entered the final
straight, as Haim Ramon, Amram Mitzna and Binyamin Ben Eliezer came
face-to-face.
The
party's 100,000 members will cast their ballots on November 19 to
decide who will lead Labor and run for the country’s top job.
Mitzna,
the dovish mayor of Haifa, said: “I promise Israelis that we will
separate ourselves from the Palestinians with peace, if that is
possible, through negotiations.”
He,
like Ramon and Ben Eliezer, was asked to sum up his political platform
in 30 seconds.
“For
there to be negotiations, there must be two parties ... If not, there
will be a unilateral separation because we alone are responsible for
the security of the state of Israel,” said Mitzna.
“In
parallel, we will speed up the construction of the security
barrier" along the Green Line that separates Israel from the West
Bank. "We will separate from the Palestinians and concentrate all
our energies and our budgets on social problems,” he said.
For
his part, Ramon said he would “not waste time with negotiations, and
will work immediately for the construction of a security wall around
all the important (Jewish) settlement blocs” in the West Bank.
At
the same time, Ramon said all Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip
would be dismantled, as well as isolated ones in the West Bank.
He
said “I will seek a (Palestinian) partner” for negotiations,
“but I will not delay the construction of a security barrier while
being dependent on the goodwill of the Palestinians.”
Ramon
also stressed the need to focus on social issues, the central platform
of Labor going into elections at a time of unprecedented economic
crisis in Israel.
Ben
Eliezer, the current party head, who as defense minister triggered a
political crisis by pulling Labor out of Sharon's broad-based national
coalition last month, made a dramatic promise.
“Three
days after my election to the post of prime minister, I will call the
Palestinians to negotiations,” he said, on the basis of a political
program he submitted to the party in mid-May.
“This
plan is the only one in which the Palestinians have absolute
confidence,” he said.
The
plan considers separation a “strategic necessity” and envisions
creation of a Palestinian state on most of the West Bank and Gaza,
with Israel dismantling the settlements in Gaza and isolated ones in
the West Bank.
As
for occupied Jerusalem, Ben Eliezer’s plan envisions a separation of
the Jewish-controlled west from the eastern sector occupied in the
1967 Middle East war and a “special regime” for holy sites there.
The
latest survey among party members leaves the 66-year-old Ben Eliezer
lagging 12 percentage points behind Mitzna’s 42 percent in voter
intention, while Ramon is only credited with 22 percent.
Meanwhile
in Ramallah, Arafat on Wednesday, November 13, brushed aside the
election pledge made by Netanyahu to expel him.
“He
must know I am Yasser Arafat, this is my land, the land of my great,
great, great, great-grandfather,” he told reporters after a meeting
here with China’s new special envoy to the Middle East, Wang Shijie.
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