THE newly elected Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, last night attempted to assure Israelis, Arabs and the watching world that his accession to power would not spell the end of the Middle East peace process.
However, in a break from the Palestine Liberation Organisation's generally low key approach to Mr Netanyahu's victory, a senior PLO official yesterday accused the Likud leader of deliberately leaving the group out of his speech.
Mr Hassan Asfour said Mr Netanyahu appeared to be "forgetting the political realities that the past government has signed an agreement and recognised the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people".
Long on generalities, but short on specifics, Mr Netanyahu's half hour speech at a celebratory rally in Jerusalem included a call for hitherto antagonistic Arab states to "join the circle of peace" with Israel, and a pledge to "continue the peace negotiations with the Palestinians".
What it lacked, however, was any kind of indication as to how the prime minister elect intended to realise the central slogan of his successful election campaign, to bring Israel "peace with security".
There was no hint, for example, of whether his incoming government would proceed with the next phase of the Palestinian peace accords - an Israeli army withdrawal from most parts of the West Bank city of Hebron - or seek to renegotiate the issue. On the campaign trail, Mr Netanyahu had indicated he would not sanction a Hebron pullout.
However, since winning last Wednesday's general elections by a mere 0.9 per cent margin over Mr Peres, he has privately been hinting he would not wish to abrogate the accords on this or any other issue.
Broadcast live on both Israeli television channels, Mr Netanyahu's speech was a choreographed affair, held in a Jerusalem conference centre crammed with ecstatic supporters. On the stage, ranged in rows of receding importance, were the 31 newly elected members of his Likud alliance who will sit beside him in the Knesset.
When Mr Netanyahu came on stage, to a roar of applause, his wife Sara was beside him, Hillary Clintonesque in pearls and a tailored black and white suit. But her presence had clearly not been pre arranged a seat had to bed hurriedly found for her at the end of the front row, slightly muddling the precise arrangements.
Unusually for him, the 46 year old Likud leader read from a prepared text, making a succession of stirring if vague pledges. He promised to heal the divisions in Israeli society, to maintain rock solid relations with the United States, to ensure equality for Israel's Arab citizens, to reform the economy, and to take care of the most needy Israelis, including "the elderly, the immigrants and the elderly immigrants".
But where his predecessor, Mr Peres, filled his speeches with talk of conciliation and compromise with Israel's neighbours, Mr Netanyahu noticeably stressed, above all, that his government's search for peace would stem from a position of strength.
Four years of divisive Labour rule, he said, had now come to an end. Under his stewardship, he vowed, Israel would first unite from within, and then achieve "stable, real, secure peace" without.
"The Lord will give his people strength," he quoted. "The Lord will bless his people with peace." And then, just in case anyone had forgotten the order of that sentence, he repeated it: "The Lord will give his people strength, the Lord will bless his people with peace.