On the political front, the Palestinian Authority called for the emergence of a government which would make peace its priority.

"I hope the Israeli people will choose a leadership capable of building peace because the Israeli people deserve a better leadership than the current one," chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said.

He said the Palestinians are looking for a new Israeli leadership "which will work for peace, not for war and bloodshed."

The collapse of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government after Labour pulled out last week proved "its failure to establish security and peace," said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's adviser, Nabil Abu Rudeina.

"What interests the Palestinian Authority is the emergence of a government which respects its commitments to the peace process. It's the only path to peace for the whole region," he said.

But Palestinian analyst Ali Jarbawi, a university academic, said: "all the signs are that Labour has little chance of winning the next election" after its revolt against Sharon's Likud over a budget row.

"The real contest will pit the current prime minister Sharon against his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu," his rival for the Likud leadership and as head of government, said Jarbawi.

"The Palestinians are now waiting to see which right-wing they will be faced with: the right wing of the fundamentalist Sharon or the right of the extremist Netanyahu," he said.

Ahead of polling, Likud is to hold primaries in which Netanyahu is expected to challenge Sharon, who has offered his rival the job of foreign minister after the national unity government fell on October 30.

The 90-day period leading up to elections will be "a difficult time for the Palestinians," Jarbawi warned.

"Sharon will try to be even more right-wing than Netanyahu and will take radical and difficult measures" against the Palestinians, the analyst predicted.

Political commentator Hani al-Masri agreed that Labour had "little chance of winning the election, because the right is more population" among the Israeli public in the wake of more than two years of Palestinian revolt.

"The fall of the current government and Sharon's vain efforts to form a narrow-based government confirm the fact that Israel is going through a difficult phase," he said.

The general trend is "not towards the left, but much more to the right."

With the collaboration of Labour, Sharon steered a right-leaning but broad-based national unity government through 20 months of escalating conflict with the Palestinians, increasing stress on his cross-party government.

That coalition fell apart amid mounting pressure from rank-and-file Labour members to end their collaboration with a government that included ultra-nationalists.

They also wanted to define a separate policy in view of forthcoming elections, which had to be held in October 2003 at the latest.

(China Daily November 7, 2002)