`AMERICAN' VENEER CLOAKS MILITANT ZIONIST WORLDVIEW.

Byline: Serge Schmemann The New York Times

A conversation with Israelis about Benjamin Netanyahu inevitably comes around to how ``American'' he is.

Some say it with admiration, some with disdain, but they talk of his American accent, his American education, his Kennedy-style clan and the American name he once tried - Ben Nitay.

Above all, they talk about his mastery of ``American-style'' politics, by which people here mean his mastery of pungent sound bites and packaged issues. That Netanyahu's image was massaged by an American, Arthur Finkelstein, came as a surprise to no one.

But behind Netanyahu's ``Made in USA'' facade is a very Israeli core, a native ``sabra'' reared on militant Zionism, tempered in an elite commando unit and chary of giving an inch to his enemies, whether politicians or Arabs.

His heroes are his father, historian Benzion Netanyahu, an ardent follower of a right-wing school of Zionism that held as early as 1925 that the Jewish claim to the entire land of Israel was unquestionable and non-negotiable, and his brother, Yonatan Netanyahu, whose death leading the commando raid to free Jewish hostages at Entebbe in 1976 turned him into an Israeli legend.

The question frequently posed, now that the 46-year-old ``Bibi'' (as he is universally known here) has been chosen by Israelis to lead them through the end of the century, is whether his comforting talk of continuing his predecessor's pursuit of peace, albeit with more concern for security, is only an ``American'' sales pitch, or represents a genuine shift in his inherited outlook.

The final judgment will come with time. But already now, when stripped of the smooth euphemisms and evasions, there is a consistency to his statements, a combination of his father's brand of unyielding Zionism and his brother's sacrifice, whose heroism proclaimed that the response to terrorism must be direct, immediate and vicious.

While Netanyahu has accepted Palestinian self-government in areas already granted them, he has never even suggested a readiness to cede Israeli sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem, or the West Bank, or the Golan Heights, nor to curtail Israel's right to take whatever measures it deems necessary to safeguard its security, even if this means entering areas under Palestinian control.

Though he avoided saying in his campaign whether he would invest more money in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, he has made clear that the Labor Party's ban on their expansion will be lifted.

Netanyahu also indicated what he meant by negotiating with Arabs during his debate with Prime Minister Shimon Peres. The Arabs, he said, were ``realistic'' - ``When they see a weak government like Peres', they demand everything, they get everything, and they demand more.''

When they come up against a tough government, he might have continued, that same realism would curb their demands.

Netanyahu's campaign was a combination of American packaging and native ruthlessness. It was a style that proved especially suitable to the first election in which voters were asked to choose not only parties, but also a personality.

Focusing sharply on popular fears and emotions, reducing issues of war and peace to sharp slogans, Netanyahu relentlessly chipped away at Peres' early lead.

Netanyahu's skills were most in evidence in the only televised debate of the campaign, when he blithely ignored most of the moderator's questions and used his time to fire off vicious sallies at Peres.

``The way of Mr. Peres brought neither peace to Israel nor real security. It brings us fear,'' Netanyahu declared, or: ``It is not one of my dreams to tour the palaces of Europe with Arafat, as Peres has been doing.''

The performance was savaged by virtually every prominent newspaper columnist. But polls showed that it worked, gaining Netanyahu another critical percentage point.

The ``Americanization'' of Netanyahu began in 1963, when he was 14 and his father took a teaching job in Pennsylvania. Young Bibi finished high school in the United States and, after five years of military service, enrolled at MIT, where he took a master's degree in business administration. It was also in the United States that he made the first two of his three marriages.

His years in the United States, which encompassed the Vietnam War era and the election of Ronald Reagan, had a distinct impact on Netanyahu. But he ardently denied during the campaign that he ever contemplated staying in America. ``Not for a single moment,'' he declared in the debate. ``I come from a Jewish, Zionist family, with roots here for 100 years.''

Netanyahu emulated his scholarly father by writing two books on international terrorism, and he served with distinction in the same unit as his brother Yonatan, the Sayeret Matcal - and in which their younger brother, Iddo, also served.

His entry into politics came after the death of his brother. Returning to Israel at age 27, he organized a series of memorial seminars on terrorism that attracted considerable attention. Among those impressed by Netanyahu's performance was Moshe Arens, then ambassador to the United States, who plucked Netanyahu from a job as a furniture salesman and made him his deputy.

Netanyahu was soon a delegate to the United Nations, a position in which he became a fixture on American television talk shows and popular with conservative American Jews.