Netanyahu disagrees with Bush call for swift withdrawal

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Posted 12:13PM on Wednesday, April 10, 2002

NEW YORK - Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considers President Bush "a great friend of Israel," but he disagrees with the U.S. leader's call for a swift Israeli troop withdrawal from Palestinian cities. The former prime minister, who was ousted before finishing his term in 1999, is preparing a political comeback with a possible challenge to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a member of his own party. "If we do not shut down the human bomb terror factories that (Yasser) Arafat is pioneering today, they will surely, as the light of day, reach the United States with greater and greater devastating force," Netanyahu said before members of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday in Washington. Speaking to American Jewish leaders in New York a day earlier, Netanyahu suggested that U.S. calls for an Israeli troop withdrawal were motivated by a desire to calm the region before striking at Saddam Hussein. "I think what the U.S. probably seeks right now ... is an extended cease-fire so they can get on the job of finishing Saddam Hussein before he acquires atomic bombs, a notable and important goal worthy of support without a doubt. But it cannot be achieved by sacrificing these principles that are at the core, the heart of this effort," Netanyahu said. The Israeli-born and American-educated Netanyahu is riding high in the Israeli polls and has been acting as a public relations spokesman for Israel, accepting interviews and speaking engagements to explain Israel's 12-day-old military offensive in the West Bank. On Tuesday, 13 Israeli soldiers were killed and nine others wounded in an ambush in a West Bank refugee camp in the biggest blow to the army's offensive. Hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis have been killed in 18 months of violence that culminated in Israel's launching of "Operation Defensive Shield." Disagreeing with international calls for Israel's withdrawal, Netanyahu, 52, said the operation must continue. He called President Bush "as great a friend of Israel as any president in the history of American-Israel relations" but disagreed with his call for a withdrawal "without delay." "I would hope that Israel complete the job, as it must, as any democracy faced with this kind of horror must do," Netanyahu said. Speaking in Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell, who arrives in Israel Thursday, said he would meet Arafat, who has been under Israeli siege in his compound. But Netanyahu, who called Arafat a terrorist, doubted such a meeting could yield results. "I don't think any meeting with Arafat will produce anything. His word is worthless, his signature is worthless, he's violated every single line of every single item of every single provision of every single contract he's signed with us. "He has ruled himself out and as soon as he is taken out of the areas ... the better." Netanyahu advocates the deportation of Arafat -- an idea which has split the Israeli government. Sharon and many in his Likud Party favor ousting Arafat. In Washington, Israeli Transportation Minister Ephraim Sneh, of the Labor Party, said any attempt by Israel to oust Arafat as leader of the Palestinians would prompt the party to withdraw from Sharon's coalition government.