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ANALYSIS: Netanyahu turns centrist, but still faces RightBy HERB KEINONJERUSALEM (October 25) - In June 1996, four days after winning the elections, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed a euphoric crowd at Jerusalem's International Convention Center and said, "I turn to the whole population of Israel, those who voted for me and those who did not vote for me; I say to you that I intend to be the prime minister of everyone."By signing the Wye Memorandum on Friday, Netanyahu made good on his pledge. It obviously would have been much easier for Netanyahu, a man for whom Likud and Revisionist ideology is in his blood, to have turned his back on Oslo. But by not doing so, by adopting the Oslo process, he has shown that he learned from one of Yitzhak Rabin's biggest mistakes: It is not enough to be the leader of half the nation. Rabin was determined to go ahead with Oslo, and paid no heed to those screaming and shouting against it. He had his slim Knesset majority, and would proceed how he saw fit. Everyone else could, as he said, spin like "propellers." Netanyahu took a different tack. He, too, had a slight majority, and possibly could have buried the agreement. But he was wise enough - some say politically cunning and pragmatic enough - to realize the will of the nation, and let it override his ideological bent. The Oslo process, and indeed the creation of a Palestinian state, has taken on an air of inevitability. The consequences of a Palestinian state, depending on one's political outlook, may be wonderful or catastrophic. Yet poll after poll shows that the majority of Israelis support and want the Oslo process to continue, and that most feel a Palestinian state will be created. Netanyahu, by signing the Wye Memorandum, has attached himself to the inevitable. He will try to steer it one way or another, but recognizes the strength of its pull. There are those who argue that the Likud imprimatur was placed on Oslo after the Hebron Accord. But that was an accord that Netanyahu largely inherited, and tried to upgrade. The Wye Memorandum is his. He, and the Likud, are now wedded to the process. Labor forged it, but the Likud got most of the rest of the country on board. Most, but not all. There still remains the ideological Right, whose members see ceding part of the land as a sellout. But even for them, there are few alternatives. They will stew over the new agreement. Invective will be hurled at Netanyahu, a few demonstrations will be held, some roads will be blocked. But the demonstrations will not have same fury as they did when Rabin was responsible for an IDF pullout from the territories. Over the last two years, Netanyahu has not tried to marginalize the settlers, but has listened to and stroked them. Now he will reap the benefits in the form of relatively muted protest. By signing the Wye Memorandum, Netanyahu has firmly placed himself in the political center. But by doing it after months of trials and tribulations, with evident pain, with Sharon in his cabinet and settler leader Uri Elitzur as his chief of staff, he has, at the same time, not cut himself off completely from the ideological Right - despite what may be heard over the next few days in the Knesset.
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