Battling trouble on the home front

Before flying home late on Saturday, Netanyahu said he was obligated to yield more territory to the Palestinian authority under the Oslo accords reached by previous Israeli governments.

“We did not choose this agreement,” Netanyahu said.

Under the West Bank accord signed last week, Israel is due to relinquish 13 per cent of the land that many Jews who supported Netanyahu, including most settlers, consider part of Israel.

It was captured in the 1967 war from Jordan, which had controlled the West Bank since 1948.

“Any inch of land that we cede to the Palestinians is painful for me to cede,” Netanyahu said in an interview. “It is part of my homeland.”

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who was in Europeon Saturday seeking financial support, said, “An independent Palestinian state is coming very soon.”

Netanyahu today rejected calls to hold early elections by Right-wing opponents of the agreement.

“There will be no early elections because the opponents of the agreement all know that no government could have obtained a better agreement,” Netanyahu told Israeli public radio. “The Right cannot allow itself to topple the government which is best placed to defend Israel,” he added.

“The settlers are my sisters and brothers and I understand their concern but my government is the only one that can best provide them with security,” he said.

Netanyahu also warned his opponents that if early elections were called “no one can guarantee them that a Left-wing government won’t take power and do harm to the settlements”.

Arafat: Counting on implementation of the deal

CAIRO: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has said he hoped the new Israeli-Palestinian peace accord would be “accurately andfaithfully” implemented to truly push forward the West Asia peace process.

Arafat’s comment, made at Cairo airport yesterday after briefing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the accord, reflects Arab skepticism that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will live up to the agreement to withdraw from a further 13 per cent of West Bank land.

The Palestinian leader met Mubarak at the Unity Presidential Palace in Cairo. The two talked alone briefly, and were then joined by aides. The session lasted one hour and 15 minutes.

Neither Arafat nor Mubarak spoke to reporters after the meeting, but Arafat later told reporters just before he departed for Algeria that the implementation of the deal was what counted.

He expressed hope that the agreement would be “accurately and faithfully implemented so that we can say that we have pushed forward the peace process and protected the peace of the courageous people”.

Arafat also briefed officials in Algeria on the new pact yesterday. He then flew to Moroccoand was to travel later to Saudi Arabia.

The agreement, signed on Friday after marathon US-mediated negotiations, call for Arafat to clamp stringent security measures on Palestinian militants to prevent attacks on Israelis in exchange for the Israeli withdrawal in the West Bank.

Many in the Arab world have criticised the pact as geared too much toward Israel’s security demands and too little toward Palestinian rights.