Netanyahu Says to Expel Arafat if Elected Prime Minister

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, November 13, 2002

Netanyahu Says to Expel Arafat if Elected Prime Minister

Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday night that if he is elected as the next Israeli prime minister, the first thing he will do will be to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

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Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday night that if he is elected as the next Israeli prime minister, the first thing he will do will be to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"As prime minister I will expel Arafat. I promise Yasser Arafat will be expelled," Netanyahu said to 2,700 delegates of a Likud convention in Tel Aviv.

He said that removing Arafat was "an essential condition for wiping out terror" and only then, would there be a possibility of peace, which he defined as including a settlement with the Palestinians that would give them "self-rule alongside Israel."

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the convention that he would wage an unrelenting battle against Palestinian militants, and predicted the effort could lead to a more moderate Palestinian leadership.

He did not specify what action he might take against Arafat, butsaid "we must not act in haste," in an apparent reference to Netanyahu's call to expel Palestinian leader.

Sharon and Netanyahu are the major rivals for the upcoming Likud leadership election on Nov. 28. Only elected chairman of the Likud party will have the chance to be Israel's next prime minister.

At the Likud party convention Tuesday evening, both Sharon and Netanyahu also promised each other the No. 2 position on the party's parliament list and in the future Likud-led government -- if Likud win the power in the general elections, due to be held on Jan. 28, 2003.

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