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Australian Broadcasting Corporation: "Netanyahu returns as Israel's Prime Minister"

"But according to the 'Peace Now' movement, this settlement (Betar Illit) grew by eight per cent in the last year."
Broadcast: 3/17/2009

Reporter: Ben Knight

In its national election held last month, Israel took a jump to the right, and a step back in time. Former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is set to announce tomorrow he has successfully formed a coalition government, ready for swearing in next week. The former Prime Minister ended his last term in 1999 with hopes for peace with the Palestinian's in tatters. This time, he inherits another failed round of peace talks, a hostile Islamic state on his doorstep in Gaza, a White House that has taken a significant shift back to the centre and a potentially nuclear Iran.

Transcript

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: In last month's national election, Israel took a jump to the right and a step back in time. The country has a habit of recycling its Prime Minister, and it's done it again: the Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu is set to announce within days that he has successfully formed a coalition Government. His last term as Prime Minister between 1996 and '99 ended in tears and with hopes for peace with the Palestinians in tatters. This time, he inherits another failed round of peace talks, a hostile Islamic state on his doorstep in Gaza, a potentially nuclear Iran and a White House that's taken a significant shift back to the political centre. Middle East correspondent Ben Knight reports.

GIL HOFFMAN, POLITICAL REPORTER, 'THE JERUSALEM POST': He's someone that, perhaps, thinks too much about what people think about him at any given time. The only one who can really bring down Netanyahu is Netanyahu himself.

BEN KNIGHT, REPORTER: Benyamin Netanyahu, the man Israelis simply call "Bibi" is back, after riding a wave of anger at rocket attacks from Gaza and pitching his campaign directly at the Zionist vote.

BINYAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER DESIGNATE OF ISRAEL (archive footage, Feb. 2009): 3,000 years this place has been the capital of the Jewish people. For 2,000 years, we've been struggling and praying to get back here and re-establish our sovereignty. We didn't unite Jerusalem to leave it; we didn't unit it to redivide it; and a Government of Likud will keep Jerusalem united under Israeli sovereignty.

BEN KNIGHT: He didn't actually win the election. So, for the second time as Prime Minister, he's leading a narrow right wing coalition, and his first challenge will be keeping it together.

YOSSI BEILIN, FORMER CABINET MINISTER: I would say that Netanyahu doesn't like the situation in which he finds himself. This is the last thing he wanted.

BEN KNIGHT: On one side are the secularists. They're led by Avigdor Lieberman, an ultra-nationalist who's been touted as a possible foreign minister. He wants Arabs to swear loyalty to the Jewish state or lose their benefits. He also wants to take the power over marriage away from the rabbis and allow civil unions in Israel. But that will never be accepted by the other part of the government, the religious right. Theirs is a marriage of convenience.

GIL HOFFMAN: The right wing parties know that chances are the next Knesset - the next Parliament - will not be nearly as right wing as this one. They have every interest in the world in keeping it together. And that will be the glue that allows this Government to survive, the world's opinion about it be damned.

BEN KNIGHT: Yossi Beilin is a former Labor politician and was one of the architects of the Oslo Peace Accords. He says the most important election for Israel took place in the US in November.

YOSSI BEILIN: If Obama is determined to connect peace in the Middle East with his commitment to withdraw from Iraq, I believe that it won't be easy for any Israeli Prime Minister, and especially for somebody like Netanyahu, who is very vulnerable.

BEN KNIGHT: Barack Obama has made his intentions clear. Just two days after his inauguration, he appointed his envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. It was a move that took many Israelis by surprise. His Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, followed soon after and began putting the pressure on.

HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: That eventually the inevitability of working toward a two-state solution seems inescapable.

BEN KNIGHT: That's not on Benyamin Netanyahu's agenda.

BINYAMIN NETANYAHU (archive footage, Feb. 2009): I don't think the people of Israel will continue the same pattern of walking out, letting the terrorists come in and using the places that we vacate as missile sites, as missile launching sites against our cities. We've had two of these already in South Lebanon and in Gaza. I don't think it's likely we're gonna get three.

BEN KNIGHT: Benyamin Netanyahu has been here before. He came under pressure from Bill Clinton to follow the Oslo Peace Accords he'd inherited as Prime Minister. And there were concessions: Benyamin Netanyahu handed part of the West Bank city of Hebron to the Palestinians and signed the Whir River agreements with Yasser Arafat. But he also built Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and stalled on peace negotiations.

BINYAMIN NETANYAHU, THEN PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL (archive footage, Jan. 1997): We are not going back to the '67 boundaries; we're not building a Palestinian state; we're not redividing Jerusalem - ever.

BEN KNIGHT: It frustrated Bill Clinton and the Palestinians.
That anger boiled over when Benyamin Netanyahu opened an entrance to an old tunnel near the Temple Mount. In the days of rioting that followed, more than 80 people were killed.

YOSSI BEILIN: He wanted to topple the Oslo agreement. In that respect, he succeeded.

BEN KNIGHT: This is the settlement of Betar Illit in the West Bank, and it's built on land that Palestinians want for their own state. And you can see how difficult that will be to achieve. Now, under its international agreements, Israel is supposed to freeze all building activity in settlements like this. But according to the 'Peace Now' movement, this settlement alone grew by eight per cent in the last year. That kind of growth is only likely to continue under Benyamin Netanyahu.

And if a peace deal is stalled for another three years, it may simply be too late.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Ben Knight reporting from Jerusalem.