Jerusalem - Israel's defeated prime minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, announced last night that he was quitting parliament but left open the door to an eventual political comeback, David Horovitz reports
At a meeting of his battered Likud party, Mr Netanyahu - who quit as party leader last week, as soon as it was clear that he had lost the general election to Labour's Mr Ehud Barak - was begged by activists to stay on. "Don't go, Bibi," they pleaded with him. "Bibi, King of Israel," they chanted.
But Mr Netanyahu, who has reportedly received numerous lucrative business, lecture and book offers, apparently has no desire to sit in the Knesset as a minor player while Mr Barak sets about governing the country. While he was stepping down from parliament, he assured his followers that he would continue to play a role in the shaping of Israel.