Hawkish Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday named Iran as Israel's main threat after accepting the task of forming a new government in the wake of the tight Feb. 20 elections. “Iran is seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon and constitutes the gravest threat to our existence since the war of independence,” he said at a ceremony at President Shimon Peres's official residence. “The terrorist forces of Iran threaten us from the north,” the presumptive prime minister said in reference to Lebanon and Syria, where Israel says Tehran supplies arms to Hezbollah and Hamas. “For decades, Israel has not faced such formidable challenges. The responsibility we face is to achieve security for our country, peace with our neighbors and unity among us,” he said. In a brief speech, Netanyahu did not directly address the issue of stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, nor did he mention the US-backed two-state solution. In Ramallah on the West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said, “We will not deal with the Israeli government unless it accepts a two-state solution and accepts to halt settlements and to respect past accords.” Peres chose Netanyahu after meeting separately with him and Tzipi Livni of the centrist Kadima party in the hope of convincing them to form a broad government alliance. Livni, the outgoing foreign minister emerged from the talks saying, “I will not be a pawn in a government that would be against our ideals,” she said. Netanyahu believes the time is not ripe to discuss the key issues raised in the peace negotiations, including the borders of a proposed Palestinian state. He insists occupied Jerusalem will remain Israel's undivided capital. Netanyahu, 59, has also insisted he would not be tied by a recent pledge by outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to withdraw settlers from the occupied Palestinian territory. As premier from 1996 to 1999, he put the brakes on the peace process, in part by authorizing a major expansion of Jewish settlements. The far-right parties he is likely to include in his coalition have little interest in the peace talks.
