Jerusalem ? In a stunning about-face, former Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed Thursday to take charge of Israel’s troubled economy, securing a spot in the new rightist government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Sharon named Netanyahu to the post of finance minister one day after he ousted Netanyahu from the Foreign Ministry and only hours before presenting Israel’s 30th government to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

It is a risky assignment for Netanyahu, who tried and failed last year to unseat Sharon as leader of the Likud Party. If Netanyahu is to succeed in reversing three years of recession, analysts say, he may have to cut salaries and government benefits, as well as privatize state-run businesses, all moves that would anger Likud’s base of political support.

In naming his longtime political rival to his government, Sharon took steps to limit Netanyahu’s power. He refused Netanyahu’s demand that he be named deputy prime minister, which would have allowed him to assume Sharon’s duties when the prime minister traveled abroad.

Instead, Sharon split the deputy’s job between two loyalists: new Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, the previous finance minister, and former Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, who stepped aside to let Netanyahu become finance minister.

The maneuvering took place in the early hours of Thursday, hours before Sharon appeared before the 120-member Knesset to unveil his new Cabinet and his vision for an Israel struggling after 29 months of Palestinian uprising.

“The people of Israel strive for peace, and I am convinced that in exchange for true peace, there is readiness for painful concessions,” Sharon said in a speech that was repeatedly heckled, British parliamentary-style, by bearded ultra-Orthodox parliament members, who weren’t invited to join the new government.

Sharon said he supported political dialogue with the Palestinians but that they must first reform their self-rule government and quell all “terror and incitement.”