Political Shifts in Israel Bode Ill for Likud : Mideast: Possible split within main opposition party may cost it support. Two new parties could also draw away votes.

Although parliamentary elections are still 17 months away, the positioning has already begun that could alter this country’s domestic political framework--and the complexion of the next Israeli government.

Taken collectively, analysts believe, the shifts now under way work against the main opposition Likud Party’s bid to regain power.

Historically, Likud has taken a tougher line on the peace process than the current Labor-led government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Likud, for example, opposes in principle the formula of trading land for peace.

The most dramatic new political development unfolded at a special Likud conference in Tel Aviv late Monday when a long-simmering feud between the party’s two leading personalities exploded into the open, raising the prospect of a damaging party split.

After losing a vote on the procedure for selecting candidates for the Knesset, or Parliament, former foreign minister and longtime party enfant terrible David Levy unleashed a blistering attack on Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, stating at one point, “You may have been elected chairman, but you are no leader.”

While Levy stopped short of splitting the party--a threat his aides had made as recently as Sunday--he appeared to be searching for a new political home.

“They have forced us out,” he said after the meeting concluded. “On June 18, we will convene and determine our path.”

Levy, a native of Morocco who began his working life as a construction worker, has a loyal following among the country’s Sephardic Jews and in Israel’s “development towns,” communities built in the 1950s to house an influx of North African Jews.

In a survey conducted earlier this week, the Dahaf polling institute projected that a new, Levy-led party in the political center could win five seats in the new Knesset if elections were conducted today.

Analysts believe that Netanyahu forced the confrontation with his foe now, well ahead of the election, knowing that it could weaken his party in the short term but gambling that it would bring longer-term benefits by ending infighting.

But two other new parties may also be searching for support near the political center, a development that could work against Likud by siphoning off much of the swing vote.

Onetime Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky is expected to formally announce today a new political movement that would be a natural home for many of the 600,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union who have resettled in Israel.

Another group, calling itself the Third Way, is also testing the political waters, mainly on a single-issue platform that would exclude the Golan Heights from any land-for-peace deal with Syria.

“If these grow into fully fledged parties, they could take votes that would otherwise go from Labor to Likud,” noted Shmuel Sandler, an analyst at the Besa Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv.

Others worry that such a splintering of the political center could paralyze any newly elected government, whether led by Likud or Labor.