New Israeli ministers toe red lines

The Israeli government's lurch to the right with the appointment of two hardline ministers last week set off alarms that the cycle of attacks and retaliation in a conflict with the Palestinians will only get worse.

But the prospect of Israeli elections and a US war on Iraq could restrain Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz from taking current military policy towards the Palestinians beyond that of their centre-left predecessors.

At least, that is, for the short term, analysts said.

Netanyahu is challenging Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for leadership of the rightist Likud Party in November 28 primaries, ahead of a general election on January 28.

While Netanyahu, prime minister from 1996 to 1999, will want to present a get-tough approach to the conflict in which hundreds of Israelis have been killed, Sharon is not likely to let his subordinate outmanoeuvre him.

"Israeli behaviour towards the Palestinians will be based on two criteria: the leadership battle in Likud and impending (general) elections," said political analyst Reuven Hazan.

"Netanyahu is trying to outflank Sharon on the right and will push either the general cabinet or the security cabinet on a much harsher line. Sharon will try to oppose it because he is running as the moderate candidate.

"But all of this is only good for another two-and-a-half weeks," he said, referring to the Likud election.

Shortly after he came in from the political sidelines and accepted Sharon's offer to become foreign minister last week, Netanyahu made clear he would make security a main campaign theme.

On Monday, after a Palestinian gunman killed five Israelis, including a mother and her two children, Netanyahu made his most scathing remarks about Arafat's leadership since being sworn in.

He told Army Radio he had been calling for some time for "the expulsion of Arafat's terror regime" and that Israel "would find the proper time to do so".

But he said such action depended on "international developments", an apparent reference to possible US war on Iraq and Washington's desire for Israel to avoid action that could hurt efforts to draw Arab support for the campaign.

Netanyahu and Mofaz, until recently Israel's army chief, were appointed after Sharon's coalition collapsed with the departure of the centre-left Labour Party over government funding for Jewish settlements on occupied land.

With Labour as his partner, Sharon responded to Palestinian suicide bombings by reoccupying West Bank cities, besieging Arafat's offices and killing militants in attacks Palestinians describe as assassinations.

Palestinians were afraid the additions of Netanyahu and Mofaz - who as Israel's top military man was once caught on microphone advising Sharon to expel Arafat - meant the worst was to come, especially if Likud won big in the coming election.

Until now, the Israeli army has not crossed two red lines: banishing Arafat and fully reoccupying the teeming Gaza Strip, an operation which Israeli generals fear would bring heavy Israeli casualties.

And although it destroyed much of Arafat's Ramallah compound in response to Palestinian attacks, it bent to Washington's will and left him in place and physically unscathed.

Sharon has said he has promised US President George W. Bush not to harm Arafat.

Hazan said he saw Netanyahu's talk of removing Arafat as mostly rhetoric, reined in by Sharon. "Sharon says: I am the boss. His (Sharon's) stated goals are to keep a relationship with the United States and to foster national consensus."

But Ali Jarbawi, a Palestinian political analyst, said he saw few restraints on the current Israeli cabinet.

"The government is an interim government. It doesn't have any brakes on it, because it is going into elections," he said.

He said that it was likely that Israel would feel it could act with a freer hand once any campaign on Iraq was under way because of diverted world attention. "After the first strike in Iraq this government has carte blanche to do what it pleases."

Gerald Steinberg, an Israeli commentator, said the caretaker government was unlikely to make any radical moves towards the Palestinians.

"The fact that Netanyahu is foreign minister is probably not going to make any difference. The competition will end in a couple of weeks, and Sharon as the prime minister has chosen a careful path working closely with the United States."

At least 1,653 Palestinians and 631 Israelis have been killed since a Palestinian uprising for statehood erupted in September 2000.