Netanyahu, Once Again, at Center of Mideast Tussle

NEWS ANALYSIS

(March 15) -- There's been a slight chink, however temporary, in the U.S.-Israel alliance, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is at the center of it.

He has apologized for the timing of the announcement about new housing plans in East Jerusalem and claims to have been blindsided by his Interior Ministry, which is run by an ultra-Orthodox party that's part of his ruling coalition. But Netanyahu also indicated he has no intention of stopping the construction from proceeding. It's not an unusual position for Netanyahu to find himself in, as his long career in Israeli politics has long featured a delicate dance between pressures from Washington and Israel's far right.

Though he's 60 years old, Netanyahu represents a young generation of Israeli leaders as the first prime minister to be born after Israel's birth in 1948. He spent some of his childhood in the U.S. (he has U.S. citizenship), returned to serve in the Israel Defense Forces and then came back to the U.S. to study at M.I.T. in Boston. He moved quickly up Israeli's political ranks as a member of Likud, the center-right party founded by Menachem Begin, becoming prime minister in 1996.

At the time, Netanyahu emphasized a policy of three no's: "no withdrawal from the Golan Heights, no withdrawal or even discussion of the case of Jerusalem and no negotiations under any preconditions." And, as recent events have shown, Netanyahu's position has not shifted.

His negotiations with Palestinians -- the Wye River Accords of 1998 -- didn't amount to much: Palestinians took control of most of Hebron, but Israeli settlements were expanded. Netanyahu lost the election of 1999 to Labor's Ehud Barak and then was overshadowed on the right by Ariel Sharon, who as prime minister pulled Israel out of Gaza.

Last year, Netanyahu returned as prime minister. With Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat dead, Sharon in a coma and the Bush administration more concerned with Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israel-Palestine peace process was stalled. But President Barack Obama vowed to restart the talks, and the recent visit by Vice President Joe Biden came after months of low-profile diplomacy by special envoy George Mitchell, who had previously worked to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

Every player involved, including Netanyahu, has recognized the need for a two-state solution -- one that, Palestinians insist, will make East Jerusalem their capital. And yet that solution remains far off, an impasse that even Israeli newspapers are blaming on Netanyahu.

As the Israeli daily Haaretz described the ambiguity: "The Israeli prime minister apparently believed that by conducting two-track negotiations he could make things coalition-friendly: to both espouse the slogan 'two states for two peoples' and sabotage the Palestinians' ability to set up their state; to both embrace Vice President Joe Biden and give the U.S. administration the finger; to both ask the administration to get Mahmoud Abbas back to the negotiating table and put thumbtacks on his seat once he's there."