Netanyahu Offers Hard-Line Plan for Israel

Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday issued his new coalition government’s guidelines, in which he promised to pursue peace with Israel’s neighbors but ruled out seemingly key elements of peacemaking such as the establishment of a Palestinian state and the return of the Golan Heights to Syria.

The guidelines, which hew closely to Netanyahu’s campaign vows, represent his first policy statement since the May 29 elections and are the terms on which up to eight political parties are expected to join his right-wing government.

The document commits the government to strengthening Jewish settlements in the predominantly Palestinian West Bank and insists on Israel’s right to send troops “everywhere” to fight terrorism--including West Bank cities already under Palestinian rule.

The hard-line policy is certain to deepen concern among Palestinians and Arab leaders that Netanyahu is abandoning the principle of trading land for peace that has been the basis for three Israeli-Palestinian peace accords since 1993.

About 20 Arab leaders are to meet in Cairo this week to forge a united response to Netanyahu’s election, and the official policy statement could add fuel to Syrian President Hafez Assad’s campaign pressing his colleagues to halt the normalization of relations with Israel.

The statement also is expected to feed mounting tensions in the West Bank, where an unidentified Arab gunman killed an Israeli police officer and wounded his wife while they were shopping at a toy store in the Palestinian village of Biddiya on Sunday.

The officer, Meir Alush, 40, apparently off duty, was in civilian dress when he was shot. His wife was wounded in the chest, but the couple’s year-old son was unharmed.

The army ordered shops closed in the village, set up roadblocks in the area and imposed a curfew while looking for the assailant.

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The attack was the third in about two weeks by suspected Palestinian guerrillas. Last week, gunmen killed a couple from the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba as they drove a back road in central Israel. On June 3, four Israeli phone company workers on a repair job were slightly wounded by an exploding pipe bomb in an orchard near Biddiya.

Islamic extremists have said they would fight any efforts by Netanyahu to backtrack on gains that have been made in the peace process.

Netanyahu’s office released the guidelines as he rushed to complete coalition negotiations in the hopes of presenting his new administration at the opening session of parliament today.

To take office, Netanyahu needs a majority of the 120 members of parliament to join in a vote of confidence. He was elected on a three-party ticket that won 32 seats.

Two Jewish religious parties--Shas and the National Religious Party--and the conservative Third Way signed agreements based on the guidelines Sunday, giving Netanyahu 55 votes. He was still haggling overnight with the Jewish party United Torah and the Russian immigrants party of former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, Yisrael Ba-Aliya, for the rest of the votes needed.

Sharansky apparently was pushing for freedom to vote against the coalition partners on religious issues. His constituency has several demands that are at odds with the religious parties’, such as civil marriage and bus service on the Sabbath.

Netanyahu also faced problems within his own Likud Party, with leading members reportedly threatening to boycott the Cabinet. Former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who had been pushing to be either defense or finance minister, rejected the Housing Ministry that Netanyahu offered him, according to Israeli radio and television.

Former Justice Minister Dan Meridor, a popular Likud moderate, reportedly passed on the Tourism Ministry and Binyamin “Benny” Begin, the son of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, did not accept the Health Ministry, the media said.

“We are still trying to work something out with them,” said Michael Stolz, a Netanyahu spokesman.

Netanyahu is not expected to announce his Cabinet appointments until today, but Israeli news media have widely reported that Netanyahu selected Yitzhak Mordechai, a former general who joined Likud seven months ago, as defense minister, and David Levy, leader of the Likud breakaway party, Tsomet, as foreign minister.

In a surprise move, Netanyahu also asked Bank of Israel governor Jacob Frenkel to be finance minister, Israeli radio and television said.

Because Frenkel and a lawyer reportedly tapped to be justice minister are independents and not professional politicians, analysts said Netanyahu was consolidating his personal power while marginalizing any potential rivals within his party. Netanyahu is Israel’s first directly elected prime minister.

The Labor Party of outgoing Prime Minister Shimon Peres is not expected to have a role in the government.

In the guidelines released Sunday, Netanyahu pledged to continue peace negotiations with Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority for a permanent settlement but included the caveat “on condition that the Palestinian commitments will be fulfilled in their entirety.”

The document did not detail the “commitments,” although Netanyahu has said that Arafat has not done enough to control terrorists operating out of his territory.

The guidelines say Netanyahu will conduct negotiations with Syria “without preconditions.” But later in the document it says that “retaining Israeli sovereignty over the Golan will be the basis for an arrangement with Syria.”

Syria has said that return of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, is essential for peace.

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The document states that the government will “oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state or any foreign sovereignty west of the Jordan River.”

The Palestinians want a state with East Jerusalem as its capital, but the document says Jerusalem will remain “the eternal capital of the Jewish people.”