Netanyahu Vows to Pursue Unity and a Secure Peace

Israeli Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu, in a victory speech aimed at healing wounds laid bare by a bitter election campaign, vowed Sunday to try to unify his divided nation and forge a “true, secure peace” with the Arab world.

Netanyahu, who defeated Prime Minister Shimon Peres by the slimmest of margins last week, sounded notes of conciliation and moderation throughout the speech, his first detailed public comments since his victory was confirmed Friday.

Before hundreds of wildly cheering supporters in Jerusalem’s Binyanei Haooma Convention Center, the 46-year-old leader of the right-wing Likud Party said his first priority will be to “heal the breach” between Israelis divided along political and religious lines.

“Peace begins at home,” he said, adding that those efforts should be followed by further progress in peace negotiations with the Palestinians and neighboring Arab states.

Although the speech contained few specifics, it did provide a glimpse of the directions Netanyahu’s government is likely to take. In addition to indicating his desire to continue along a path toward peace, he stressed the significance of Israel’s close relationship with the United States and vowed to strive for a freer economy and a greater flow of immigrants.

Political analysts said the Likud leader’s generally conciliatory tone seemed aimed at easing fears his election has sparked at home and abroad that he would scuttle the Middle East peace process.

Netanyahu has 45 days from Wednesday’s election to form a coalition and take power. His aides have said he expects to present his new Cabinet to the Knesset, or parliament, for approval by June 17.

In his speech, Netanyahu also reached out to Peres, the 73-year-old Labor Party leader who lost the election by less than one percentage point. Netanyahu praised his rival’s contributions to Israel over a half-century political career.

The raucous crowd responded with jeers, but Netanyahu admonished them, raising his hand and repeating his praise. “The campaign is behind us, and we are now in a different era, the era of unity across the nation,” he said.

The acknowledgment of Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was but one of many American-style touches by the man soon to become Israel’s first media-savvy leader. Netanyahu, who spent much of his youth in the United States, garnered considerable attention during the campaign for his easy speaking ability on television and for his tendency to be accompanied on campaign stops by his wife and children. Both are rare in Israeli politics.

Underscoring that Israel will have a new kind of leader, Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, not only attended her husband’s speech Sunday but was introduced by him--and greeted in deafeningly friendly fashion by the audience.

Dotted among the standing-room-only crowd were representatives of the diverse groups whose votes brought Netanyahu to power: ultra-Orthodox Jews in their traditional long coats and black hats, religious Jews in skullcaps, Bedouins in flowing headdresses and youthful “Likudniks” in T-shirts and jeans.

Throughout the 25-minute speech, Netanyahu expressed views that were often more moderate than those held by at least part of his audience, which reserved some of its loudest roars of approval for the most hard-line members of his entourage, retired Gens. Ariel Sharon and Rafael Eitan. Cheers also greeted the statement that his government would never again allow Jerusalem to be divided, as it was between 1948 and 1967.

*

In the speech, Netanyahu said he extends his hand to all Arab leaders and to the Palestinians, and he called on them to join Israel in a “circle of peace” to work for a permanent solution to the conflicts that have torn the region.

“We intend to advance the process of dialogue with all our neighbors to achieve a stable peace, a real peace, a peace with security,” he said, echoing a frequent campaign theme.

Ahmad Tibi, an Arab citizen of Israel and advisor to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, called the speech disappointing because Netanyahu never mentioned either Arafat or the Palestine Liberation Organization, Israel’s partner in the peace process.

“This was intentional,” Tibi said. “He directed his speech to the Palestinian people and he is trying to exclude the Palestinian leadership. Mr. Netanyahu will soon know that without the [PLO] and Mr. Arafat, there is no peace in the area.”

Netanyahu has opposed the land-for-peace concessions that formed the basis of the peace talks with the Palestinians. He also said before the election that he would never give up the Golan Heights, which was seized from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War. Syria views its return as a condition for any negotiations.

Aref Nabari, 25, a Bedouin from a village near Beersheba, attended the victory celebration with about 60 others from his community. While Nabari said he supports the peace process, he said the Labor government has devoted too much attention to it, ignoring economic and other issues.

“For the last four years, they haven’t cared for the simple man, only for the big things, the peace, the outside world,” he said.

Uzi Baram, a Labor Party leader and tourism minister in the Peres government, responded positively to the speech but said it is too early to make any lasting judgments. “We will have to judge Netanyahu according to his actions,” he said.

In Geneva, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said U.S. Middle East policy remains unchanged, but he indicated that Washington may have to make some changes once Netanyahu formally sets the program of his new government. He left open the possibility that those changes could include the U.S. position on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which Washington has considered obstacles to peace.

“I would want to keep open the situation of adapting our policy to the situation as it develops, as this new [Israeli] administration forms its government and begins to develop its own policies,” Christopher said in an interview on the CBS-TV program “Face the Nation” that was recorded before Netanyahu’s Jerusalem speech.

Later, however, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said there would be no change in U.S. policy on the settlements.

Netanyahu is expected to have to deal quickly with the difficult issue of Hebron, the last West Bank city still under the control of the Israeli army. Before Netanyahu’s speech Sunday, the Peres government announced that it will not pull troops out of the city before leaving office.

The city’s Palestinian mayor had urged Peres to act quickly to ensure that the promised withdrawal goes forward.

*

A statement released by the Peres administration said the issue of Hebron, where about 400 Jews live among about 100,000 Arabs, will be left to the new government. But, according to Israel Radio, it noted that Israel has made an international commitment to hand over all West Bank cities to Palestinian self-rule.

The army’s withdrawal from Hebron was scheduled for March but was delayed after a wave of suicide bombings by Islamic extremists in February and March that left more than 60 people dead.

But the government did move Sunday to ease a three-month closure of the territories that has kept Palestinian workers from reaching jobs in Israel. Officials said 11,000 Palestinians were allowed to return to work after restrictions were lifted.

Peres, who also made his first public speech since the election, appealed Sunday to his fellow Israelis to continue his quest for Middle East peace.

“Right now, our nation must respect the agreements that we have achieved even if we don’t like the dreams that our partners may have,” Peres said in an address at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

The only alternative to peace, Peres said, is continued “bloodshed and darkness and disappointment.”

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Geneva and researcher Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.