HARD PRESSED to resolve the conflicting claims to high office from his front ranking political allies, Israel's Prime Minister elect Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, acknowledged last night that it might take him a month or more to put together a government.
Mr Netanyahu met the state president, Mr Ezer Weizman, yesterday to receive his congratulations on last week's narrow election victory. Today he is to hold his first post election meeting with the man he defeated, Mr Shimon Peres.
He has been invited to Washington by President Clinton, and to Jordan by King Hussein, and plans a visit to Egypt to reassure President Hosni Mubarak of his commitment to the peace process. But first he has to put together a coalition capable of winning a Knesset majority.
The simplest way would probably be to invite Mr Peres's beaten Labour Party to join his Likud bloc in a "unity government". But such coalitions in Israel's recent past have proved to be cumbersome, paralysed entities, too riven by in fighting to achieve anything substantive. In any case, Mr Netanyahu would much rather consign Labour to four years of frustrating opposition.
Instead, he is working to co-opt three Orthodox Jewish parties, which are demanding as their price that Israel henceforth take the sabbath "day of rest" more literally. They also seek legislation to minimise the influence of the more liberal Reform brand of Judaism.
To reach the magic 61 figure in the 120 seat Knesset though, he also needs the backing of Mr Atan Sharansky's immigrant party, a party dedicated in part to breaking the Orthodox Jewish monopoly. Finding a formula to satisfy all these factions is not going to be easy, and Mr Netanyahu admitted yesterday that coalition building was going to take longer than the fortnight he envisaged.
The new leader also has a tricky task naming his cabinet. Mr Ariel Sharon, a key figure in the victory, would dearly love to be defence minister most of the Arab world, well remembering Mr Sharon's ill conceived invasion of Lebanon in 1982, shudders at the thought. Mr Netanyahu knows that such an appointment would not go down well with the Americans, either. But with another key ally, Mr David Levy, virtually guaranteed the foreign ministry, what is to be done with Mr Sharon, and with Mr Rafael Eitan, another hard liner owed a top post?
The man he would like to make defence minister, the former Gen Itzhik Mordechai, is so reviled by the current top army brass that his appointment would probably spark a mass resignation in the high ranks.
The radical change of administration is already prompting talk of resignations elsewhere. Israel's ambassadors in Washington and Amman are said to be on the way out the director of the Government Press Office is quitting, and the director general of the Foreign Ministry, Mr Uri Savir, closely associated with the Peres Rabin peace accords, is leaving.
The upheaval in the diplomatic corps reflects the consensus that Mr Netanyahu, while vaguely committed to the peace process, is not about to follow the Oslo accords to the letter a sense reinforced by his failure to mention the Palestinian president, Mr Yasser Arafat, or the Oslo accords in his victory speech.
That sense was reinforced by remarks made by one of his advisers, Mr Dore Gold, last night, to the effect that Israel under Mr Netanyahu would weigh its compliance with the Oslo accords by taking into account Palestinian compliance a comment clearly designed to prepare the ground for something other than a smooth implementation of the next scheduled stage of the peace process, Israel's already much delayed troop pullout from the West Bank city of Hebron.
Reuter adds, Mr Arafat said yesterday that he hoped Mr Netanyahu would be as committed as his predecessors to the Middle East peace process.
Asked by reporters during a trip to Britain what message he had for Mr Netanyahu, Mr Arafat said. "To continue the peace process, the peace of the brave which we have signed with my partners, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, and we hope to continue with Mr Netanyahu."
Mr Arafat addressed the Oxford Union last night.