Begin’s Son Challenges Netanyahu

JERUSALEM — Joining a growing list of challengers to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the son and political heir of Likud Party founder Menachem Begin announced Monday that he is quitting the Likud to mount a right-wing bid for prime minister.

The challenge by Binyamin “Benny” Begin, 55, a veteran lawmaker who has been an unbending opponent of Israel’s land-for-peace accords with the Palestinians, could split the support for Netanyahu in elections now scheduled for May 17.

Legislators from the Likud and Labor parties agreed on the tentative date Monday, a week after Israel’s parliament signaled the end of Netanyahu’s tumultuous government with an overwhelming vote for early national elections. The date is expected to gain final approval from a parliamentary committee today.

The elections would fall less than two weeks after a May 4 deadline set by Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat for a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood if a final settlement with Israel has not been reached. The timing suggests that any statement or action by Arafat will become a key factor in the race.

Selection of the mid-May date also confirms that there will be a protracted period in which Israel will have a caretaker government, essentially freezing the peace process.

Netanyahu’s handling of peacemaking with the Palestinians is certain to be at the heart of the campaign.

Begin said it was the prime minister’s signature on the U.S.-brokered Wye River agreement with the Palestinians that triggered his decision to form a new far-right party and challenge Netanyahu. The accord, signed Oct. 23 at the White House, made Netanyahu the first right-wing Israeli leader to agree to transfer a sizable chunk of the West Bank to the Palestinians.

It has been bitterly opposed by nationalists, rightists and religious leaders who believe that the West Bank is part of the biblical Land of Israel, or that the Palestinians cannot be trusted to make peace.

During a Tel Aviv news conference, the tough-talking Begin on Monday equated Arafat’s Palestinian Authority with the militant Islamic Hamas movement, and said the two groups shared a “strategic understanding.”

“There are only two possibilities today,” he said. “Either we are dragged down the road--down the Wye River--and we give away more territory to these hoodlums, or we stand firm.”

Begin’s chances of actually becoming prime minister are considered slim in an era when polls show that a consistent majority of Israelis support territorial compromise with the Palestinians. But he could weaken Netanyahu by splitting the right-wing vote, analysts said.

Perhaps more significantly, Begin’s decision to quit the Likud is the latest in a series of moves by party stalwarts to defect or mount challenges to Netanyahu from within. Their ranks include several--such as Begin--of the Likud aristocracy, whose fathers helped found the party and its ideological predecessor, the ultranationalist Herut Party.

Last week, another Likud “prince,” Netanyahu’s former finance minister, Dan Meridor, announced that he would run for prime minister on a new centrist slate. A third, hard-line Likud lawmaker, Uzi Landau, said he would challenge Netanyahu for the party’s leadership.

Late Monday, hawkish Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon, who said on Sunday that he would not challenge Netanyahu’s leadership, said he could be a candidate under unspecified “special circumstances.” Sharon, speaking in an Israeli television interview, would not elaborate, except to say he meant “in circumstances that necessitated.”

Two other senior Likud figures, Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai and Communications Minister Limor Livnat, are reportedly debating whether to leave the party.

“It’s a terrible blow for the Likud,” said Haifa University political scientist Asher Arian. “When a number of key ministers and leaders walk out of a party, it’s bound to make its voters question what’s going on.”

Netanyahu on Monday denied that his support was disintegrating within the Likud, pointing to the broad backing for him over the weekend at a gathering of the party’s central committee. Another potential Likud adversary, Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, has said he will not challenge Netanyahu’s leadership.

“The party is very solid and very unified around the direction we have taken to bring Israel peace and security,” Netanyahu said.

But Begin, a geologist who earned his doctorate in the United States before entering politics in 1988, said Netanyahu’s policies had blurred the historic distinctions between Likud and Labor and were leading Israel to instability and violence.

Begin said his candidacy “is the only substantial alternative today to a path that clearly leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state . . . which will bring neither peace nor security.”

Begin, who served briefly as science minister in Netanyahu’s government, quit after Netanyahu agreed in January 1997 to withdraw Israeli troops from most of the West Bank city of Hebron.

His father, the late Menachem Begin, was the Likud’s first prime minister, serving from 1977 to 1983. The elder Begin reached the landmark Camp David accords with Egypt’s Anwar Sadat in 1979, in which the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt, but did not support territorial concessions to the Palestinians.

In a telephone interview after his announcement, Begin expressed mild regret at leaving the party his father founded.

“It’s a shame that we have arrived at this point, but I came to the conclusion that Mr. Netanyahu had a high chance of leading the so-called national camp to defeat in the elections,” he said. “I think a second candidate can give us a fair shot at winning.”

His candidacy drew mixed reactions from right-wing legislators.

Michael Kleiner, who heads the far-right Land of Israel front, said he would run on the same slate with Begin.

Yitzhak Levy, the leader of the National Religious Party, praised Begin as an “honest and decent man,” but said his decision to form a new party would split the right’s vote and lead to a victory by the Labor Party.

At the same time, Labor is suffering from fractures of its own, with several members flirting with the idea of joining Meridor or others in a new centrist grouping.

Also positioning himself in the center of the crowded field of candidates for the prime minister’s job is Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, a former army chief of staff, who has captured the imagination of Israelis looking for a leader.

Labor Party leader Ehud Barak on Monday appealed to the party’s legislators to remain united.