By Stan Goodenough
The leader of the Israeli opposition Likud Party, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Monday that the coalition led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "must return the mandate to the people to choose another government."
"The Olmert-Kadima government has no mandate to negotiate on Israel’s borders," the former prime minister said, according to Ynetnews.
"This government was elected under different circumstances and times. Most of the public knows that any land we give away will become a terror base for Islam extremists under Iran’s patronage," Netanyahu told a Likud faction meeting, which along with the other parties' Knesset factions was holding its first meeting in six weeks.
"Bibi" - as the Likud leader is widely known - steered clear of exploiting the ongoing criminal investigation into Olmert, who is being probed for having allegedly taken bribes.
Instead he homed in on the inability of Olmert's government to adhere to its basic guidelines as laid out when it came to power on May 4, 2006.
Olmert and his Kadima Party were elected to continue efforts to pave the way for a two-state solution begun when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon executed the "disengagement" [in reality, retreat – Ed] from the Gaza Strip.
The next step, which Sharon was gearing up to perpetrate when he was felled by a hemorrhagic stroke in December 2005, was retreat from Samaria and Judea - the ethnic cleansing of Jews and the destruction of all Jewish towns and cities in those areas in order that a Palestinian state can be created there.
Samaria and Judea comprise the biblical heartland of the Jewish people, the cradle of their nationhood. The Jewish patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph are buried there, and the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives are situated in those "occupied territories."
According to "the Basic Guidelines of the 31st Government of Israel" Olmert's administration committed itself to "take action even in the absence of negotiations and agreement with [the 'Palestinians'] on the basis of a broad national consensus in Israel and a deep understanding with Israel’s friends in the world, primarily the United States of America and President George Bush [to establish] Israel’s territory, the borders of which will be determined by the Government [and which] will entail the reduction of Israeli settlement in Judea and Samaria."
In the two years since the government's election, all Israel has learned the price for relinquishing territory:
The Palestinian Arabs turned the surrendered Gaza Strip into a terrorist base from which thousands of rockets have been fired into southern Israel - those attacks continuing to this day - Israeli soldiers have been regularly attacked and Gilad Schalit - the then 19-year-old IDF corporal - was kidnapped and is still being held.
In the summer of 2006 the Lebanese Hizb'allah, using territory unilaterally vacated by Israel, kidnapped Israeli soldiers, triggering the Second Lebanon War which saw thousands of rockets fired into northern Israel, causing more than a million Israelis to flee south.
It is in the light of these painful realities, Netanyahu said, that new elections have to be held.
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