On Tuesday morning the prime minister's motorcade drove a few blocks to the official residence of President Moshe Katsav where Mr. Sharon admitted his coalition no longer enjoyed a workable majority in the Knesset. President Katsav, exercising one of the few functions of his largely ceremonial role, dissolved Israel's fifteenth parliament and called for elections within ninety days.

The Sharon government is the latest in a series of Israeli administrations to collapse before serving their full term. No Israeli government since 1988 has succeeded in completing a full four-year sitting.

The writing had appeared on the wall one week earlier when Defense chief Binyamin Ben Eliezer quit the cabinet taking his Labour party faction with him. Ben Eleizer stormed out over the second reading of the budget saying Labour could no longer serve in a coalition that funded West Bank settlements while slashing welfare payments.

Sharon moved quickly to replace the departing defense minister with recently retired army chief Shaul Mofaz, and invited former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to serve as foreign minister instead of Shimon Peres. Mofaz, still in between hanging up his uniform but not yet wearing a politician's dark suit, answered what he said was, "A call to the flag." Hours after being sworn in as defense minister, he was visiting the wounded of the latest suicidal bomb attack on a shopping mall in Kfar Saba.

Netanyahu, a wily back-room deal maker who seeks to replace Sharon both at the head of the Likud party and in the Prime Minister's office, was not so eager. He met with Sharon and presented a list of demands. Topping Netanyahu's list was a call for fresh elections within six months. Item two was the expulsion of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from the occupied territories. After the parliament was dissolved, Netanyahu accepted the foreign ministry posting in the interim, caretaker government.

On a parallel track, Sharon's aides were sounding out small factions from the far right in an attempt to broaden the coalition and carry on in government. But the demands of the right wing parties, including the annulment of the 1992 Oslo Peace Accords, proved impossible to meet.

The election date will be Tuesday, January 28th. Political analysts agree that a short election campaign is likely to be fierce and a further drain on the already depleted national treasury. The campaign will be fought against the backdrop of a continuing Palestinian terror campaign. The constant danger of attacks where ever crowds gather, will limit the number and size of election rallies. There is also concern that the campaign will be held under the shadow of an American-led military action against Iraq.

Two issues will be placed before the Israeli electorate. The handling of the conflict with the Palestinians and the state of the economy. Although the moribund state of the economy is liked directly to the dire security situation, this fact is ignored by a lot of Israeli voters. They want the Palestinian issue resolved by harsher crackdowns, curfews and a concrete wall eight meters high to seal off the West Bank. Then they will be ready to deal with the economy. Conventional wisdom in Israel holds that, in dangerous times voters cast their ballots solely on the security issue.

However, before the polls open, both Sharon and Ben Eleizer have to fend off challenges to their leadership. The coming weeks will see party conventions for Likud and Labour, and internal elections called primaries to elect the men who will head the party lists on election day. Unlike in previous general elections where separate ballots were cast for Prime Minister and party, the system has recently been changed to a single vote. Voters will mark their ballots for a party, and in theory at least, the man who leads the wining party becomes Prime Minister.

Ben Eleizer faces strong challenges from Haim Ramon, a career politician from Jaffa and former government minister, and Amram Mitzna. Mitzna is yet another ex-general and currently mayor of Haifa. Both men are seen as centrists, keen on social reform, willing to talk to the Palestinians and opposed to another Likud-Labour coalition shambles.

Sharon has proved popular both within his own party and with the general public. Despite his fearsome reputation as a general who ignored orders, during his twenty months in office he impressed many Israelis as a pragmatist and consensus builder. The rank and file of the Likud party are notorious for turning the tables during leadership races and a recent membership drive has swelled the party ranks with new faces whose allegiances are unknown. In an internal race between Netanyahu and Sharon, all bets are off.

Israel's history shows that right wing governments who hastened early elections do not get returned to power.Israel's new foreign minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, committed himself on Wednesday to winning world opinion in the conflict with Palestinian hardliners, soon after he was sworn in at the parliament.

"Our enemies have managed through their lies to convince [the world] that they have the right to kill us. We must stop justifying ourselves and reestablish the truth: this is the central goal of our foreign policy," he said.

"We must fight for better days and prepare ourselves to the possibility of a [US] war against Iraq with all its consequences for Israel," he added.