MAALE ADUMIM (West Bank), Aug 31: Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu launched his campaign to oust bitter rival Ariel Sharon as prime minister with a call on Wednesday for massive new settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

Staking out the battleground for the right-wing power struggle triggered by Sharon’s removal of settlers from Gaza, Netanyahu urged immediate building — in defiance of Washington — on a particularly sensitive area outside East Jerusalem.

“The time has come to build here and I will build here,” Netanyahu told reporters on a tour of the rocky hillside between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim, the biggest West Bank settlement.

Sharon himself says Israel plans construction in the so-called E1 tract despite heavy US criticism and fury from the Palestinians, who are concerned they would be cut off from the holy city they seek as the capital of an eventual state.

The plans call for construction of 1,000 housing units and later, a tunnel to divert Palestinian traffic from the area, said Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, a project spokesman.

Israel has not yet approved any building at the site, but recently approved construction of a police station there.

Netanyahu declared his challenge to Sharon for leadership of their ruling Likud party on Tuesday, a step that could lead to elections earlier than the due date of Nov. 2006 and is likely to keep any peacemaking with the Palestinians on hold.

Netanyahu, a 55-year-old former premier who resigned as Sharon’s finance minister over the Gaza plan, is the darling of rightists opposed to yielding any settlements in Israeli-occupied territory that Palestinians want for a state.

They fear it sets a precedent for giving up homes on land to which settlers say they have a Biblical claim and that it rewards a Palestinian uprising begun in 2000.

The World Court has ruled all the settlements illegal. Israel disputes this and the United States has said Israel could expect to keep some West Bank land under a peace settlement that leads to Palestinian statehood.—Reuters