"Jerusalem is in danger," the former Prime Minister said. "The Palestinians are actively trying to detach Jerusalem from Maaleh Adumim." He called for a new wave of construction to create Jewish contiguity between the two.
Quick to blame his political rival, Netanyahu said, "I unfroze the construction in this area in 1999, and today, Sharon is freezing it." He blamed the Prime Minister's policies for isolating Jerusalem.
"The Palestinians are building from north to south, suffocating Jerusalem," Netanyahu said. "Sharon perpetuated that situation [by stopping Jewish construction] because he gave in to international pressures."
Netanyahu was accompanied on his tour by Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin. He is hoping to receive the party's right-wing support against likely candidates Uzi Landau and Moshe Feiglin. However, many in the religious-Zionist camp are not likely to quickly forget that he resigned from the government only after it was too late to save Gush Katif.
At his candidacy-announcing press conference yesterday, Netanyahu, who served as Prime Minister from 1996 until he was defeated by Labor's Ehud Barak in 1999, said, "Our political home [the Likud] has experienced a great shake-up that threatens all of us. The man who received our votes turned his back on us. Ariel Sharon abandoned the Likud's principles and chose to take the path of the left-wing... The Likud and the country need a leader that will deal with terrorism, and with the splits in the nation. We need a leader who can unify the ranks and rebuild from the ruins."
Netanyahu's candidacy caused a stir in Labor, as well. With none of the Labor candidates for party leader taking a real lead, last-place Ehud Barak shrewdly called for all of them to unite behind Shimon Peres. If in fact both Netanyahu and Peres lead their respective parties in the coming election, it will be a repeat of the election in 1996, when Netanyahu narrowly defeated Peres only several months after Rabin's assassination.