Benjamin Netanyahu -Promising a ‘new way’

TEL AVIV - Benjamin Netanyahu went into Israel’s parliamentary election Tuesday with a slight lead in the polls, after promising “a new way” to Israelis.

He has long been a voluble and hardline critic of Israeli peace moves, resigning from the government in 2005 to protest the initiative of former premier Ariel Sharon to unilaterally withdraw Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip.

He warned that relinquishing Israeli control of the Gaza Strip would turn it into a springboard for attacks on Israel. Many Israeli think the spate of rocket attacks from the salient on southern Israel, which increased following the Israeli departure in August and September 2005, proved him right.

Netanyahu has been particularly vocal on the subject of the Islamist Hamas movement, which administers the Gaza Strip. He advocates the removal of the Islamist party and promises to bring about an end to the continued rocket fire from the salient on southern Israel.

At the same time, while campaigning for premier, Netanyahu has moderated somewhat his formerly maximalist approach to the peace process, saying he will continue searching for a political solution to the conflict.

However, he has added the rider that that any such solution has to be accompanied by the economic development of the Palestinian territories and the strengthening of the moderates in the Palestinian Authority.

He has also sworn not to relinquish Israeli control over East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.

Netanyahu is hoping his platform will see him re-elected for his second term as premier.

His first term, from 1996 to 1999, ended with his decisive defeat by Labour Party leader Ehud Barak.

Netanyahu was born on October 21, 1949 in an affluent suburb of Jerusalem. He was educated in the United States and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a masters in business management.