MIDDLE EAST: Efforts this week by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to rekindle the defunct Israeli-Palestinian peace process look set to be overshadowed by a deepening political crisis which threatens to topple Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government.
Ms Rice, who arrived in Israel last night, is expected to urge both sides to seize momentum after Israel's recent withdrawal from Gaza to return to the internationally endorsed roadmap for peace which envisages a two-state solution.
Ms Rice said yesterday the Palestinians needed to tackle militants ahead of next January's parliamentary elections, while Israel should not do anything to prejudge the outlines of a final settlement.
"A Palestinian state would indeed enhance Israeli security," she said.
However, Israeli domestic upheavals seem set to dominate the political agenda during Ms Rice's visit, with newly elected Labour Party leader Amir Peretz stepping up his threats to force early elections by pulling his party out of Mr Sharon's ruling coalition.
Just three days after Mr Peretz's surprise ousting of elder statesman Shimon Peres, relations between Labour and Mr Sharon's rightist Likud party have noticeably soured.
A weekend of political mud-slinging began after Mr Peretz threatened on Saturday night to topple Mr Sharon's government as early as next Wednesday by backing a bill to dissolve parliament, which could bring elections forward to next February from their scheduled date of next November.
Mr Peretz made it clear during his election campaign that he intended to end the ruling alliance with Likud which Mr Peres forged ahead of the Gaza pull-out.
However, he issued the surprise ultimatum on Saturday after accusing Mr Sharon of stalling when the prime minister postponed a meeting to discuss a date for a general election until next Thursday.
An aide to Mr Sharon yesterday dismissed Mr Peretz's threats, citing a busy diplomatic schedule.
Meanwhile Likud loyalists rushed to portray the new Labour leader as a brash union leader unaccustomed to the niceties of national office.
Ms Rice's trip to Israel coincides with a visit by US senator Hillary Clinton and her husband, former US president Bill Clinton, who have attended commemorations marking the 10th anniversary of the assassination of the former Labour prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by an ultranationalist Jew opposed to his peace overtures with the Palestinians.
During a tour of Israel's West Bank barrier yesterday, Mrs Clinton said she supported the structure, which the International Court of Justice has described as illegal and which Palestinians say is an attempted land grab.
"This is not against the Palestinian people," Mrs Clinton said during a tour of a section of the barrier being constructed around Jerusalem.
"This is against the terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help to prevent terrorism. They have to change the attitudes about terrorism."
Mrs Clinton, who is expected to run for US president in 2008, has had a sometimes troubled relationship with Israel, notably when she stood in silence during a visit to Ramallah in 1999 as the wife of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat accused Israel of poisoning Palestinians.
Her comments yesterday, combined with the fact that she will not meet Palestinian leaders on this trip, are likely to stir speculation that she is courting support among Jewish voters in her White House bid.
Palestinian leaders were also notably absent from a weekend rally in Tel Aviv in honour of Mr Rabin, who shared his Nobel peace prize with Mr Arafat for signing the now-defunct Olso accords which committed Israel to ceding occupied territory to the Palestinians.
Mr Clinton addressed the rally, attended by tens of thousands of Israelis, saying he was awed by Mr Rabin's "ability to move from being a soldier to being a peacemaker, a politician to a statesman . . . If he were here, he would say, 'There is enough of all this missing. If you really think I lived a good life, if you think I made a noble sacrifice in death, than for goodness sakes take up my work and see it through to the end."