Netanyahu Says His Comeback Is Coming

It could well go down as one of the shortest political comebacks in history.

Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waltzed back onto the Israeli political stage just over a week ago, announcing he was here to save the day and recapture the leadership of a country on the brink of the abyss.

Then, early Tuesday, deciding that Israel’s upcoming election was not to his liking because it didn’t include a vote for a new parliament, Netanyahu left the race before it began.

But wait. The in-again, out-again right-winger may be sitting on the sidelines for this election, but he is by no means calling it quits on Israeli politics. Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, Netanyahu said he’s confident he could win any election he took part in.

“You know and I know, in 60 days I could be prime minister,” Netanyahu said, alluding to the Feb. 6 election date. “I could run, and I’m sure I would be elected.”

But to be prime minister with the current 16-party parliament, he said, is a recipe for paralysis. Although parliament voted in the wee hours of Tuesday against dissolving itself--even as it voted to let Netanyahu run--he said it’s only a matter of time before the legislative body will have to disband and hold general elections.

“When it happens, I will be there,” said the man popularly known as Bibi, whose brief return to the campaign trail from a self-imposed exile generated enormous attention and political frenzy here.

Theoretically, the parliament, or Knesset, could still dissolve itself before it adjourns next week. But that’s highly improbable.

Netanyahu’s downfall early Tuesday came at the hands of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, which sorely wanted him as prime minister but wasn’t willing to give up its own lucrative cut of Knesset seats. Later Tuesday, Netanyahu rejected the argument, expressed by a wide range of pundits, that he had miscalculated.

With Netanyahu out of the picture, right-wing hawk Ariel Sharon will be the Likud Party’s candidate to challenge caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who resigned amid weeks of unabated Israeli-Palestinian violence that gutted his efforts to reach a comprehensive peace settlement--a goal that has been the pillar of his government.

Barak would have been crushed by Netanyahu, polls show, but he stands a fighting chance against Sharon. He faces another potential challenge, however, from within his own Labor Party. Shimon Peres, former prime minister and Nobel peace laureate, was debating Tuesday whether to mount a campaign.

Peres has been critical of Barak’s handling of negotiations with the Palestinians. The 77-year-old told several politicians who visited him Tuesday that he indeed wants to run, Israeli television reported Tuesday night. But people within the Labor Party and on the left are worried that his candidacy would be divisive and hand victory to Sharon.

Polls show Peres doing slightly better than the beleaguered Barak against a right-wing challenger, and he could attract the substantial bloc of Israeli Arab voters who are keenly disillusioned with Barak and refuse to support him. But Barak’s government this week embarked on a round of negotiations with the Palestinians, giving new, if tempered, hope that a deal to end the violence and settle core issues could be achieved.

If Barak can make a deal with the Palestinians--and there have been reports that he is willing to compromise anew on territory and control over the holiest of Jerusalem’s shrines--then Peres would have less of a campaign leg to stand on.

Two of Israel’s preeminent authors, A. B. Yehoshua and Amos Oz, joined forces Tuesday to urge the left to stand united behind Barak and resist the temptation to back an alternative candidate.

“Putting up another candidate is liable to divide the camp, sow confusion among peace activists and detract from the sense of resolve that will be so critical in the upcoming election campaign,” the two wrote in the influential Haaretz newspaper.

Peres has until midnight Thursday, the deadline for registering candidates for the February election, to decide if he will challenge Barak.