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ANALYSIS: Now for the tough partBy SARAH HONIGJERUSALEM (October 25) - If Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had a rough time at Wye Plantation, that will all seem like a summer-camp romp compared to what awaits him here on his return.The big questions in the political arena are whether he did not commit political suicide out in Maryland, and whether he did not single-handedly shorten his government's life expectancy. Those more optimistic souls around Netanyahu think not. They may only be putting on brave faces, but to hear them, the prime minister has in fact conquered the political center and had made himself all but impregnable. His advantage in any upcoming early election would be enormous, they predict. More immediately, some of them even go so far as to pooh-pooh the dire warnings by the far Right that it will bring Netanyahu down. To hear them, the agreement he has contracted is so good that the more troublesome Likud ministers are sure to be swayed. They are even more certain that Netanyahu can work his magic on his ultra-hawkish NRP ministers - Yitzhak Levy and Shaul Yahalom. They note that, contrary to Labor claims, the agreement is quite unlike anything which the Americans had already offered Israel months ago. Netanyahu will argue to his coalition partners that, in his deal, every move is conditioned on the Palestinians' living up to a previous commitment. There are dates and specifications and everything is tightly nailed down, so that mere words and honeyed pronouncements by Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat will not get him off the hook. Thus even the NRP has not been written off in some Likud quarters, where it is believed that Levy, Yahalom, and others are amenable to persuasion, "because their only alternative is [Labor's Ehud] Barak as prime minister and Yossi Beilin handing Arafat all he wishes in the upcoming permanent-status talks. If they bring early elections about they cannot be sure who will win," warns Health Minister Yehoshua Matza, who often echoes Netanyahu's sentiments. Netanyahu himself might initiate early elections, but not if he has any other viable choice, it is thought in the Likud. The wishful thinking around Netanyahu is not only that the NRP will listen to reason after a respectable period of outraged indignation, but that it will also not dare go to early elections, because it is afraid of them. Reality, however, may fly in Netanyahu's face. What happened to then prime minister Yitzhak Shamir in 1992 should be enlightening for him.
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