Netanyahu pledges to expel Arafat if elected

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Foreign Minister, said yesterday that if he were elected Prime Minister he would expel Yasser Arafat from the occupied territories.

"The first order of business of the next government needs to be to expel this man," Mr Netanyahu told a Likud party conference, in a speech shown on national television. "I promise you that as Prime Minister I will expel Arafat. I think this is an absolute condition to eliminate terror."

His words will be met by dismay in the West. The American government has leant heavily on Israel not to act against Mr Arafat while it sought Arab support for an attack on Iraq – George Bush even made the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, promise that Mr Arafat would not be harmed.

But Mr Netanyahu may be in a position to keep his word as soon as January. He is standing against Mr Sharon for the leadership of Likud this month. The winner will almost certainly be the next Prime Minister – according to the opinion polls, Likud looks certain to win elections due in January. But Mr Netanyahu is trailing Mr Sharon heavily in the Likud race – one recent poll put him 10 points behind, with 38 per cent support within Likud to Mr Sharon's 48 per cent.

Mr Netanyahu's strategy has long been to try to outdo Mr Sharon as a hardliner, frequently criticising the Prime Minister for not being tough enough on the Palestinians. Ironically, Mr Sharon is known to have long wanted to expel Mr Arafat himself but his hands are tied by his promise to Mr Bush.

Mr Sharon got a bigger cheer for his speech to the Likud conference yesterday, in which he mocked Mr Netanyahu's promise to kick Mr Arafat out, saying: "Security is not built on slogans or magical solutions." Mr Netanyahu's detractors have long said that he is all talk and little action.

Mr Netanyahu sought to justify his words yesterday, accusing Mr Arafat of responsibility for the attack on a kibbutz on Sunday in which five people were killed by a suspected Palestinian gunman, including two children shot dead with their mother. Mr Netanyahu described Mr Arafat as the "head of the murderers".

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which have links with Mr Arafat's Fatah organisation. There have, however, been signs of a split with the Fatah mainstream – the killings coincided with talks between Fatah and the militant group Hamas in Cairo aimed at ending attacks on civilians in Israel. An Al-Aqsa leader was quoted on an Israeli website as saying: "We are not committed to any agreement signed by Fatah or Hamas as long as the Israel continues its crimes."