Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu opened what promises to be a bare-knuckles re-election campaign by deriding the "fantasies and ambitions" of his political rivals and insisting the public will back his tough stance towards the Palestinians. "We will go to the people and the people will give us the support to achieve peace with security," the prime minister said, a day after Israel's parliament voted overwhelmingly for early elections and rejected Netanyahu's peace policies. The collapse of the prime minister's hard-line governing coalition and the start of what is expected to be a four-month-long contest for the prime minister's job appeared to put the already ailing Middle East peace process on hold. This is drawing bitter protests from the Palestinians, who insist Israel is bound to honour the Wye River accord despite the political turmoil. "It's really unfortunate that the only thing that Mr Netanyahu has decided to stop is the peace process," said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Ereikat. He called on the Clinton administration to press Netanyahu to move ahead with the promised hand over of West Bank territory. In Washington, the State Department said that Israel should go ahead with the pullback, as stipulated in the accord. Netanyahu has refused to do so, but claims that political upheaval has not played a part in the continued freeze on Israeli compliance. If the Palestinians meet demands laid down over the weekend by the cabinet "Israel will carry out its part in the agreement, without any relation to the election schedule," the prime minister's office said in a statement. Netanyahu's latest conditions to the Palestinians, which they have rejected, include a renunciation of claims to statehood rights and Jerusalem; a confiscation of arms; an end to violence and incitement to violence; and a renunciation of claims that Netanyahu had agreed to release Palestinian political prisoners. The prime minister, who remains in his job until the elections, referred indirectly but pointedly to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's oft-made assertion that the Palestinians have a right to declare a state in May 1999. "We won't give territory to the Palestinians when they say they will simply take that territory and will continue the violations and will decide unilaterally on our future," he told Israeli radio. The elections are likely to take place by the end of April. In addition to Netanyahu and Labour leader Ehud Barak, a half-dozen other figures have indicated they will jump into what is beginning to appear a political free-for-all. Netanyahu brushed aside polls suggesting he will lose by a slim margin to Barak and by a considerably wider margin to popular former army chief-of-staff Amnon Shahak, who has indicated his intention to form a centrist party. "The fantasies and ambitions of all those who want to be prime minister -- please. We will allow the voters to decide who needs to lead the state," he said in the radio interview. He predicted he would draw "utmost, massive" support from voters affiliated with his conservative Likud party. Likud, though, was already weathering a storm of defections. Dan Meridor, Netanyahu's former finance minister, said Tuesday he was quitting the party and entering the race for prime minister himself. "I have decided to submit my candidacy for the post of prime minister," the 51-year-old Meridor said at a Tel Aviv press conference. "I have decided to leave Likud." Denouncing a climate under Netanyahu in which "the lie has become the norm," Meridor said he would be setting up his own centrist party and did not rule out aligning himself with Shahak. "I hope we can work together," he said. The early elections bill, given preliminary approval by lawmakers on Monday, must pass two more parliamentary readings. Netanyahu has said he will not try to block its final passage. The unraveling of Netanyahu's coalition began with the signing of the US-brokered Wye River accord two months ago. The pact's land-for-security provisions infuriated far-right lawmakers -- a small but powerful faction in Netanyahu's government. The opposition Labour party promised Netanyahu support as long as he stuck to the agreement but that fell apart earlier this month when the prime minister scrapped a scheduled troop withdrawal from five per cent of the West Bank after a wave of anti-Israeli violence.
