Settlement leader takes blame for loss, sees hard times ahead

JERUSALEM -- On Tuesday, a Jewish settlement leader announced his resignation acknowledging that he and his colleagues were responsible for the downfall of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Pinhas Wallerstein, executive director of the Council of Jewish Settlements of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, said he and other right-wing critics of Netanyahu must take responsibility for his election defeat. Last year, settlement leaders as well as nationalist parliamentarians launched a campaign to topple Netanyahu's government following his signature on the Wye River accords in October.

The accords called for an Israeli handover of 18.1 percent of the West Bank to full or partial Palestinian control.

Wallerstein, whose resignation takes effect in June, said he is concerned that the election of Labor Party chairman Ehud Barak will mark the onset of hard times for the nearly 200,000 Jewish residents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "I am scared that the settlers will be delegitimized," he said.

Election results showed that 88 percent of West Bank settlers voted for Netanyahu. Many of them, however, voted for the right-wing Nationalist Union and ignored Netanyahu's Likud Party.

Binyamin Ze'ev Begin, chairman of the Nationalist Union, announced on Wednesday his resignation from parliament.Begin, whose party won three seats in the Knesset, said Monday's elections results have led him to conclude that he does not have a constituency.

"My intention was to improve things and I couldn't do it," Begin said. "I have come to the conclusion to stop my activities."

Begin's resignation ends a 12-year political career. He was elected in 1988 to parliament and in 1993 ran for Likud Party chairman and lost to Binyamin Netanyahu. Begin challenged Netanyahu in the race for prime minister but withdrew from the race on Sunday evening, hours before the polls opened.

Netanyahu resigned as Likud chairman on Monday night, less than 30 minutes after the polls closed and Labor Party challenger Ehud Barak was declared the winner in the race for prime minister.

Jewish settlers said they will resume a campaign to establish outposts outside their communities. They said they fear that Barak will agree to territorial concessions in the West Bank that will create isolated settlements.

Some settlement leaders welcomed Wallerstein's resignation and called for the entire council to stop down. "We are talking about the same leadership for the last 20 years," Avi Farhan, a Gaza settlement leader said. "These people have been exchanging positions as in musical chairs."