Netanyahu's government may fall on Monday

In his three-way meeting today with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, US President Bill Clinton was unable to get Netanyahu to change his mind about implementing the next stage of Israeli troop redeployment that is due on Friday.

Netanyahu has maintained that the Palestinians have not done enough on their part in the security field to warrant implementing the second phase of the Wye accord.

As Netanyahu moved away from extremist parties in the Knesset to sign the Wye accord, the Labor party provided Netanyahu with the needed support for the approval of the Wye accord in the Knesset. But Netanyahu is facing a knesset no-confidence vote next Monday, and he is not likely to survive it as the labor party which promised to support Netanyahu if he implements the Wye accord has come to see Netanyahu as not wanting to see this accord succeed

. Well informed Labor party insiders indicate that this support will be withdrawn next Monday making it very likely that Netanyahu's government will fall, with Netanyahu being forced into elections in two month from Monday.

But Netanyahu seeing the writing on the wall is moving to preempt this move. Early indications from Netanyahu's office are that the prime minister will be calling for a early elections.