Israel 'avoids full peace solution'

Dubai: Israel's new prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unlikely to pursue a comprehensive solution to the Middle East conflict but will keep up appearances to satisfy Washington, analysts said.

"Netanyahu's government will likely seek to avoid a public confrontation with the United States and therefore not publicly repudiate any peace process," Nathan Brown of the Washington DC-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told Gulf News.

"Instead, they will seek to deflect diplomacy rather than pursue it enthusiastically," he added.

Benjamin Netanyahu began his second term as Israeli prime minister yesterday at the helm of a right-wing government that has raised fears about the future of the Middle East peace process.

The 59-year-old Netanyahu will head a coalition that includes his right-wing Likud, the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu, ultra-Orthodox Shas and a small religious faction as well as the centre-left Labour party.

In Tuesday's inaugural address to the 120-seat parliament, Netanyahu said the biggest threat Israel faced was the possibility of a radical regime armed with nuclear weapons - a clear reference to Iran.

But the hawkish Likud leader said he would pursue a final accord with the Palestinians, while making no mention of a future Palestinian state.

"Under the final accord, the Palestinians will have all the rights to govern themselves except those that can put in danger the security and existence of the state of Israel," Netanyahu said.

The Palestinians have given a cold welcome to the new government, with president Mahmud Abbas saying yesterday that Netanyahu "does not believe in peace" and urging the international community to pile pressure on Israel.

"Benjamin Netanyahu never believed in a two-state solution or accepted signed agreements and does not want to stop settlement activity," Abbas told the official Palestinian news agency.

Since being charged with forming a government after the February 10 general election, Netanyahu has repeatedly made clear that his priority was confronting Iran, rather than moving the hobbled peace talks forward.

Nahum Barnea, a columnist for Israel's mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper, said Netanyahu would likely tie peace talks to a tougher American stance on Iran's nuclear programme, which Israel views as its biggest threat.

"There are two questions here: Whether Obama will be able to subject his agenda to Israel's, and whether Netanyahu will be willing to accommodate the American president on a series of issues, topped by the negotiations on the establishment of a Palestinian state," he wrote in a column on Tuesday.

"While the Obama administration is seriously committed to diplomacy in support of a two-state solution, that in itself is not enough to revive the peace process," Brown said. A poll published in Israel's Haaretz newspaper found that 54 per cent of Israelis are disappointed with the new government, mainly because of its size. With 30 ministers Netanyahu's cabinet will be the largest in Israel's 60-year history.