Israelis are going back to the polls in the spring and incumbent Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is facing challenges from all directions. Andrew Album reports.

Following the collapse of Binyamin Netayahu's coalition government, Israel's voters will be heading to the polls on 17 May in what promises to be a bitterly fought contest. Last time around, in 1996, when Israel had its first direct election for prime minister, as well as a separate parliamentary vote, it was a two-horse race between the Likud's Netanyahu and then Labour party leader Shimon Peres. This time around, things will be different, with a number of candidates threatening Netanyahu's hold on the top job.

Before facing the electorate and his opponents, Netanyahu must first deal with challenges from within the ruling Likud party, where he has few friends and many enemies. Initially, there was talk of Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert launching a challenge. A Likud heavy hitter who is known for his hardline stance, Olmert would have presented a serious threat. That possibility appears to have receded when he decided not to run, after failing to enlist the support of Yitzhak Mordechai, the party's moderate defence minister.

In a further sign that the Likud is uniting around Netanyahu and pulling back from full-scale civil war - which would have undoubtedly been political suicide - hawkish Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon also declared he would not be putting himself forward as a candidate for prime minister. Sharon called for the party to support Netanyahu.

This leaves Uzi Landau, a Likud veteran and the chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs and defence committee as the only declared opponent within the party. Backed by former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, Landua hopes to garner the support of other hardline nationalists who bitterly opposed the recent Wye accords with the Palestinians and the decision to relinquish more territory in the West Bank.

Even if Landau's rebellion fails, as most commentators believe it will, Netanyahu will face a further and more concerted challenge from the nationalist camp, following the announcement by Dr Ze'ev Benny Begin that he is quitting the Likud to lead a new far-right grouping.

Son of former premier Menachem Begin, Benny has long been at odds with Netanyahu and has been a fierce critic of his willingness to hand over land to the Palestinians.

"For us the Likud does not exist any more. We must start again," declares veteran hawk Elyakim Haetzni, who has been instrumental in helping establish the new party. Adds disaffected Likud member Michael Kleiner, "there are now two major left-wing parties, Labour and the Likud."

Kleiner originally encouraged the move by forming a cross party grouping within Israel's parliament, to provide a unified nationalist voice. "We've stopped being a lobby group, and started becoming a political party," he says.

The immediate challenge the nascent party faces is whether it will merely serve as a home for secular right wingers or whether it will merge with the National Religious Party. The NRP is the traditional home for religious Zionists and has been a partner in most of Israel's coalition governments. In recent years, it has shifted to the right but still concerns itself with religious as well as territorial issues.

The NRP, which has nine Knesset members, making it the fourth largest parliamentary party, may even split over the issue. Hardliners such as Hanan Porat are keen to merge, but party leader and Education Minister Yitzhak Levy has profound reservations. "The NRP has to make a historical choice: to become part of the right wing mainstream and have a major influence on developments" in the West Bank, says Porat, "or to remain a closed religious order and become irrelevant."

Having easily beaten Begin in the 1993 contest for the Likud leadership, Netanyahu is probably not overly concerned about a new party to the right. Indeed, without Sharon, it does not appear to represent much more than a realignment of existing parties with limited support.

"Of greater concern is whether Begin will split the nationalist vote to such a degree that Netanyahu fails to make it into the second round of voting for prime minister," says one commentator.

The greatest unknown threat to Netanyahu comes from the political centre. The phrase itself is something of an anethema in modern-day Israeli politics, with little of substance separating the moderate wing of the Likud Party with the mainstream ideology of Ehud Barak's Labour. And with the outcome of elections usually determined by the swing voters who stand at the centre of the political spectrum - most voters are too wedded to their own camp to consider shifting their allegiances - it is this ground which both Barak and Netanyahu will be seeking to capture.

Irrespective of this, attempts are being made to forge a new central alternative to the two pillars of Likud and Labour. The moves were initially forged by Roni Milo, who at the time was mayor of Tel Aviv.

"The old traditional parties have come to the end of the line," says Milo."The public is thirsty for something new, more in tune with its real needs." That something, he hopes, is his new centrist movement Atid.

The launch of Atid marks the latest stage in 49-year-old Milo's long political odyssey. In a previous incarnation, Milo was renowned as a hardline hawk within the Likud. The advent of the Oslo accords with the Palestinians marked the beginning of a sea change in his political beliefs. At the time, Milo incurred the wrath of the Likud leadership by refusing to vote against the Oslo deal when it was brought to the Knesset for ratification.

Milo then quit the Likud and was elected as the mayor of Tel Aviv, the country's largest city, on a populist platform. This was all the more remarkable as Tel Aviv has long been considered a bastion of the Labour party. Many of its supporters shifted their support to Milo, no doubt impressed by his willingness to publicly criticise the encroachment of the Orthodox political parties into Israeli life.

It is the issues of the peace process and religious/secular relations that are the basis of Atid. According to Milo, "the entire Middle East is facing the same question. Who will decide our future, the extremists or the moderates. If the moderates win, then the whole Middle East will go down the peace road, and that will affect the economy too." Israel also needs to put an end to religious coercion, warns Milo, adding, "otherwise my children and many other secular children won't want to live here anymore."

Milo was quick to concede that he would not necessarily be the party's candidate for prime minister. He made no secret of the fact that he wanted to recruit other big names from the political map. "What I am proposing is that if there is a better candidate than me, with a better chance of winning, he can lead," Milo told one interviewer.

Sceptics were quick to write off Atid. Many saw it merely as a vehicle to further Milo's personal political ambitions despite the lofty rhetoric. Others scoffed at his claims that he would be able to attract other big names or doubted whether Milo would be prepared to stand aside if a more plausible candidate came forward.

Since the breakdown of the present government, Milo's attempts to prise other leading politicians away from the two main parties have begun to bear fruit.

First to emerge was former Likud Finance Minister Dan Meridor. Meridor had served under Netanyahu but had a serious falling out with his former boss. He announced his decision to quit the Likud within twelve hours of the Knesset's no confidence vote.

Meridor, who also served as justice minister under Yitzhak Shamir, launched his campaign with a withering attack on Netanyahu. "The problem is not ideology. The problem is the moral decay to which the Likud was pushed almost violently, day after day, week after week, by the leadership of prime minister Netanyahu," he declared.

"I could never have guessed that we could go that low, that no word has been kept. Truth has become very rare, no promise is being taken seriously. Cynicism and manipulation dominate the whole scene," Meridor added.

It now looks as if former army chief of staff Amnon Shahak is about to throw his hat into the ring as well. An unknown quantity, Shahak has been biding his time since retiring from the army. So far, little is known of his beliefs, but that has done little to dent his popularity. The increasingly disaffected Israeli electorate, it appears, is desperate for a fresh alternative.

At the time of writing, Shahak seems poised to announce his candidature. What is uncertain is whether it will be in tandem with Meridor, or as part of Atid (with or without Meridor) or on his own.

A further unknown quantity is Defence Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, a Likud moderate, who has consistently been named as Israel's most popular politician by the opinion polls. Mordechai is known to be disenchanted with Netanyahu but has already spurned the advances of other disaffected Likud members seeking his support.

Mordechai remains a wild card but someone who should certainly not be ignored. Were he to join a centrist grouping then a mjor political realignment could be on the cards.

The failure to recruit Shahak will be a bitter blow to Labour Party leader Ehud Barak, who has been courting his successor as army chief of staff for many months. Barak had long hoped to bring Shahak into his team as his number two and present the electorate with what many were calling a "dream team" ticket.

If Shahak eventually does decide not to run, then Barak seems to be in a much better position that he was just a few short weeks ago. With Netanyahu struggling, Barak's position seems to be improving, according to the opinion pollsters.

A recent poll showed Barak ahead of Netanyahu by 45 per cent to 38 per cent. However, it is early days yet and Israeli polls have a notorious record of being incorrectly skewed towards the Labour candidate. Even this poll showed 15 percent of voters undecided. With Shahak yet to commit, and no decision on whether there will be one or more centrist candidates, it looks like being a very interesting election indeed.