Israel’s Opposition Party Picks Netanyahu as Leader : Politics: He opens attack on Rabin, assails Labor policy of ‘concessions, concessions, concessions.’

Winning election as leader of Israel’s opposition Likud Party, former Deputy Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday immediately launched his campaign to oust Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and end what he called a policy of “concessions, concessions and concessions” in seeking peace with the country’s Arab neighbors.

Netanyahu, responding to mounting fears here over the security both of the country and of individuals on the street, at work and in their homes, called for “a much tougher line” in negotiating with the Arabs, in dealing with Palestinian unrest and in combatting terrorism.

Accusing the Rabin government of inexcusable weakness in confronting a recent upsurge in violence, Netanyahu declared that Jews had not returned to Israel “to run away, to retreat. . . .

“We can fight terror,” he said. “We know how to, and we will do it! If (members of the government) don’t know how, they should step aside!”

In his hard-hitting victory speech, Netanyahu made clear his intention to challenge Rabin on virtually every issue, at almost every juncture and to exploit every vulnerability in order to force elections long before they are due in June, 1996.

“We will, through parliamentary and other means, organize to topple this government as soon as possible,” he told 500 cheering supporters at a victory rally near Tel Aviv.

Unless Rabin, 71, steps aside for a younger man, a new election would pit the telegenic Netanyahu, 44, who is skilled at summing up his thoughts in pithy “sound bites” and an active, meet-the-people campaigner, against a leader who is often cantankerous in mood, rambling in speech and increasingly isolated by a coterie of aides. Under a recent political reform, it would also be the country’s first direct contest for the premiership.

But within the Labor Party, there is talk of calling early elections first, if agreement is reached--as Rabin believes possible--on a peace treaty with Syria this year. That would give Labor a success to take to the voters, these party officials believe, and deny Netanyahu the time he needs to reorganize Likud.

In the Likud contest, Netanyahu, widely known by his nickname “Bibi,” won 52% of the 126,000 votes cast by party members Wednesday. That was nearly twice what his nearest rival, David Levy, a former foreign minister, received, and far more than those received by Zeev (Benny) Begin, the son of the late Likud prime minister, and Moshe Katsav, another former minister. Netanyahu succeeds former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Netanyahu, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, onetime army commando and an international expert on terrorism, became familiar to American television audiences as the face and voice of Israel during the 1991 Gulf War and the early Middle East peace talks. He appeared almost daily on television broadcasts at home and abroad.

His election as the Likud chairman seems certain to bring a new generation of leaders to the top of his party, politicians born after Israeli independence, who look ahead to the future in the next century.

But a long and bitter contest for the party chairmanship leaves Likud divided. Although Netanyahu appealed for unity and the support of his rivals, Levy pointedly refused to congratulate him on his victory. Likud insiders suggested that Levy may now try to gain control of various party committees and thus assure himself of a major voice in all decisions.

Netanyahu must quickly forge an alliance with other opposition parties, some far to the right of Likud, and try to pry out of Rabin’s coalition one of its current members, perhaps Shas, an ultra-Orthodox religious party, to bring down the government.

He also has yet to put behind him the “Bibigate” scandal--his televised confession of an extramarital affair and accusations, apparently directed at Levy supporters, that “criminals” were using the liaison to blackmail him out of the race and thus gain control of Likud.

Sarah Netanyahu, his third wife, was standing at his side during the victory speech Friday evening, and the 500 Likud members at the victory celebration cheered as he thanked her for her loyalty and then kissed her.

Netanyahu’s real focus, however, is certain to be Rabin, and his speech amounted to a warning of the relentless campaign he intends to wage.

Only nine months after its victory in parliamentary elections last June, the Rabin government has already lost popular confidence, Netanyahu declared, asserting, “The people want change.

“This vote is a mandate to build, as quickly as possible, an alternative to the present government,” he said to chants of “Bibi, Bibi, Bibi!”

Labor Party spokesmen, however, dismissed Netanyahu’s speech as “shallow,” and Health Minister Chaim Ramon mocked him for claiming to have found the answer to terrorism when Likud, in power for 15 years, had failed to do so.