ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 31, 1996 TAG: 9605310078
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: JERUSALEM
SOURCE: HILARY APPELMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
NOTE: Below
SUPPORTERS SAY Netanyahu is a perfectionist; critics say he's shallow. Israel's likely new leader is something of an unknown quantity.
American-educated, telegenic, and with scant experience in public office, Benjamin Netanyahu became a major player in Israeli politics virtually overnight.
Netanyahu, known as ``Bibi,'' was elected to the Kenesset, or parliament, for the first time in 1988 and quickly rose to the Likud Party leadership. Thursday, he appeared to have come from behind to edge out Prime Minister Shimon Peres in a tight election.
At 46, Netanyahu would be the country's youngest prime minister, and he stands out sharply from Israel's traditional politicians and party insiders.
Admirers and critics alike describe him as an ambitious, driven perfectionist. He is a voracious reader and has written two books on international politics, and he idolizes Winston Churchill. But he is plagued by a reputation for superficiality, in part because of his penchant for speaking in 10-second sound bites and flair for American-style politicking.
Steered by American campaign strategist Arthur Finkelstein in this election, Netanyahu pounded home his message: Peres' policies were eroding Israelis' security.
``The way of Mr. Peres brings us neither peace nor security,'' Netanyahu said in a televised debate this week. ``It brings us fear.''
Netanyahu's standing in the polls plummeted after the Nov. 4 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist bent on stopping the peace process. Rabin's widow, Leah, accused Netanyahu of contributing to the rancorous political atmosphere that led to the assassination.
But his popularity rebounded after the nation was shaken by a series of Islamic militant bombings that killed 63 people in Israel in February and March.
Netanyahu capitalized on the bombings in his campaign, insisting that the Arabs make unreliable peace partners and promising to be tougher on terrorism. He has surrounded himself with generals known for their toughness toward Arabs.
At the same time, Netanyahu's staunch opposition to the Israel-Palestinian peace process softened as his standing in the polls grew. He said he would accept those agreements already negotiated, and - in a reversal of his previous position - that he would consider meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
But he also said he would leave the Palestinians with something far short of a state, and promised to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He said he will refuse to discuss the future of Jerusalem in negotiations with the Palestinians or to return the Golan Heights to Syria.
The son of a Cornell University professor, Netanyahu spent most of his teen-age years in the United States, attending high school in a Philadelphia suburb and studying architecture and business administration at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He returned to Israel for army duty, serving in an elite army commando unit and reaching the rank of captain.
In 1976, Netanyahu's older brother Yonatan died in the commando raid that freed passengers of a hijacked jetliner in Entebbe, Uganda. The death of Yonatan, who became an Israeli hero, strongly shaped Netanyahu. He set up the Jonathan Institute - using the English version of his brother's name - a foundation that studies ways to combat terrorism.
There Netanyahu caught the eye of Israel's ambassador to Washington, Moshe Arens, who named him his deputy in 1982. Two years later, Netanyahu became ambassador to the United Nations.
Netanyahu - well-connected and well-dressed - was a hit in Washington, parlaying the appointment into an important political post, from which he worked to end Israel's international isolation and target Arab terrorism.
In 1988, he was elected to the Knesset, and beat out a half-dozen rivals five years later to succeed Yitzhak Shamir as party leader.
During the Gulf War, Netanyahu became known internationally as Israel's spokesman - giving interviews in unaccented English and once appearing on CNN in a gas mask.
Netanyahu's smooth public persona is marred by the messy details of his personal life: He has been married three times and in 1993 stunned Israelis by admitting on prime-time television that he had had an extramarital affair. Netanyahu said he went public because opponents inside his party planned to blackmail him with a videotape of his extramarital affair - but no evidence of such a video ever materialized.
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Israeli Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahuby CNBreturns the applause of his supporters in Tel Aviv early Thursday.
color. KEYWORDS: PROFILE