Israel’s Netanyahu warns Iran

TEL AVIV — Benjamin Netanyahu formally took office as Israel’s prime minister Wednesday with a vow that the Jewish state would not be cowed by the threat of Iran’s growing power.

“We won’t let any person or state put a question mark over our existence,” he said as he presented his government to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem.

The Knesset confirmed Mr. Netanyahu’s new government late Tuesday by a 69-45 vote.

Mr. Netanyahu said Israel’s biggest threat stems from the possibility that a radical regime will get nuclear weapons.

Mr. Netanyahu also said he seeks to make common cause with moderate Arab countries against “extremist Islam.”

“Today, this aspiration is bolstered by a common interest between Israel and the Arab states against the fanatic obstacle that threatens all of us,” he said.

The return of Mr. Netanyahu to the prime ministership after a decade has raised concern about potential friction between Israel and the United States over the pace of the peace process with the Palestinians.

But some analysts speculate that the two allies may try to side step those differences by finding common cause on a land-for-peace deal with the Syrian government — an approach tried in the past by both Mr. Netanyahu and his defense minister, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

“The two see eye to eye on a variety of issues, including the hope that a peace with Syria would lead to a strategic realignment in the region,” said David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“The idea of breaking off Syria from Hezbollah and Iran is sufficiently tantalizing that they will test that proposition.”

Just days before Israelis went to the polls in February, Mr. Netanyahu paid a visit to the Golan Heights, in which he backed continued Israeli control over the territory captured from Syria in 1967. Then, he rejected returning the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace.

Nevertheless, a foreign policy aide to the new prime minister said the Syrian talks aren’t being ruled out.

“It won’t go off the radar,” said Zalman Shoval, a former ambassador to the United States, “but lets wait and see.”

During his first term in office, Mr. Netanyahu conducted secret talks with the late Syrian President Hafez Assad through U.S. businessman Ron Lauder.

Though Mr. Netanyahu later acknowledged the talks, he denied agreeing to giving up the entire territory. In the final year of the Clinton administration, Mr. Barak also negotiated with Syria but fell short.

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