Israeli Elections - 1999

From The New York Times

Labor, Likud, Move Over: Here's Pnina Rosenblum
Israeli Prime Minister Candidates
As New Israeli Party Emerges, Netanyahu Becomes the Issue
Israel Parties Unite for Election
New Party Vying to Be in Middle of Israeli Politics
2 Who Share a Past Are Rivals for Israel's Future
Labor Party's Hawkish Dove Zigzags to the Israeli Center
Polls Show Netanyahu Slipping
In a Sharp Rebuff to Netanyahu, Barak Is Voted Premier

By DEBORAH SONTAG

JERUSALEM -- A former model and successful cosmetics company owner, Pnina Rosenblum is
an Israeli sex symbol, tall, leggy, blonde, glamorous and independent. She is also a new political
party.

Entering the mad and volatile race to form the next government, Ms. Rosenblum has gone beyond
throwing her hat in the ring for a seat in Parliament. She has founded a movement based on herself
and her ideas, and registered as a party.

And Ms. Rosenblum is not alone. In what some see as a breakdown of the Israeli political system
and others herald as a fresh new political dynamism, this election has become a free-for-all for new,
narrowly cast parties -- parties built on personalities, on single issues, on ethnicity, on gender and on spiritual matters.

Since the right-wing coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was dissolved in
late December, more than a dozen parties have entered the political game, which has traditionally
been dominated here by two parties: Labor on the left and Likud on the right.

Among the newest parties, there is one representing Russian immigrants (the second such) and one representing Moroccans (the third). A new Arab Union party joins two other Arab coalitions, while the first Romanian party, whose platform includes a demand for a Romanian-language cable
television station, has emerged.

There is a pro-gambling Casino Party, a pro-marijuana Green Leaf and a pro-meditation Natural
Law Party. There is a gray power party, representing the elderly, and two new green power parties,
defending the environment. Ms. Rosenblum's party is one of a kind.

"I called it the Pnina Rosenblum party," said Ms. Rosenblum, who is doing remarkably well in the
polls, "because every child and every grown up in this country knows Pnina Rosenblum cosmetics
and Pnina Rosenblum pantyhose and Pnina Rosenblum herself. For 25 years, I have been the most
famous girl in Israel."

The multiparty system is not new; it is the continuation of a trend that began in the 1980s. But the
power of the smaller parties grew exponentially after the last elections, when, under an electoral
reform, Israelis were able for the first time to split their vote -- casting one vote for prime minister
and another for a party slate for Parliament.

As a result, the two large parties grew smaller, and the small parties grew larger, creating a
particularly fractious Parliament with 11 parties -- several of which developed the art of holding
national legislation hostage to their specific interests.

In the next elections, the two major parties, which have been undergoing identity crises, are expected to lose even more seats. And political analysts have predicted that as many as 19 parties will win a place in Parliament, creating a legislative body that is even more unruly than the current one.

"What lies ahead is a potentially quite unstable situation," said Yaron Ezrahi, a political scientist and
fellow of the Israel Democracy Institute. "Consensus will be still more difficult to reach, and the
collective spirit of the nation is likely to fragment even further. Everyone will be out for himself."

To obtain a place in Parliament, a party must draw at least 1.5 percent of eligible voters, or about
65,000 votes.

This does not seem insurmountable to those like Ezra Tisona, a gambler whose new party seeks to
push Israel to emulate the success of the Palestinian Authority's casino in Jericho, or Avraham
Asoulin, whose Moroccan Party wants to obtain for former immigrants from North Africa "all the
benefits that the Russians receive."

Emboldened by a sense that the political landscape is opening up, the newest parties include several disaffected former members of Labor and Likud. Two new right-wing parties have sprung up for those who think that Likud has gone soft on the Palestinian issue.

And a workers' party was registered Thursday, started by the head of the Histadrut labor federation
and aimed at those who believe that Labor has become a leftist party representing only the capitalist and intellectual elite.

Labor itself, in fact, is hedging its bets. The Labor Party leader, Ehud Barak, has registered his
campaign, One Israel, as a new party.

And at least until they join forces, there are two new center parties behind two candidates for prime
minister, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, a former army chief of staff, and Dan Meridor, a former Likud
Party finance minister.

Ms. Rosenblum, 44, is a phenomenon that no one is underestimating. The daughter of an Iraqi
immigrant, she grew up very poor in a town outside Tel Aviv. After winning a beauty contest at 17,
she became Israel's best-known fashion model. At 25, with a $10,000 loan from a friend from New
Jersey, she started a cosmetics line named after herself, which grew into a large company.

"I achieved this dream and gave much pride to women," she said. "People admired me because I
grew up in a shack, and then I built everything all by my hand. One time on TV, they asked me when
I'm going into politics. I said maybe the year 2,000. And the people, they jumped on my remark. I
got letters from all over the country. They wanted a new face, someone who started from the bottom
and raised herself up.

"I decided to take the step," she continued. "And I made my own party because I'm very
independent and by myself, I will have more power."

------

YITZHAK MORDECHAI: Fired by Netanyahu as defense minister, Mordechai is running as the candidate of a newly formed centrist party. Mordechai, 54, wants to resume negotiations with the Palestinians. He has branded the prime minister as untrustworthy and aiming his campaign at the Likud power base of low-income Israelis and those with family origins in the Arab world.

BENNY BEGIN: The hawkish breakaway from Netanyahu's Likud Party wants to stop the handover of land to the Palestinians. Begin, 55, son of late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, has founded the Herut Party, but has been unable to unite various hard-line groups around him.

January 26, 1999


As New Israeli Party Emerges, Netanyahu Becomes the
Issue


By DEBORAH SONTAG

JERUSALEM -- The last national election here turned into a referendum on the
Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. The one set for this spring, however, is less ideological. It is a
referendum on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu appeared certain to emerge as the Likud Party candidate for prime minister after votes
from Monday's internal party primaries are tallied. And as an incumbent whose strong character has
served as a lightning rod for the fierce emotions that rule this society, he will be the issue that
dominates this campaign season until the May 17 election day.

That was clear when the four leaders of the new center party officially announced on Monday what
had already leaked out: Yitzhak Mordechai, the popular defense minister whom Netanyahu
dismissed on live television on Saturday night, will lead a new centrist party as its candidate for prime minister.

Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, the former army chief-of-staff whose star has dimmed in the weeks since he
became a center candidate, stepped aside and accepted the second place on the party ticket. This
proved, he said, that, contrary to Netanyahu's charges, "we are not an entourage of egos."

Dan Meridor, the former finance minister, and Roni Milo, the former mayor of Tel Aviv, who gave
birth to the idea of a center party seven months ago, completed the center "team" -- all but Shahak
defectors from the Likud. All four men lined up before television cameras Monday night, wearing
nearly identical blue shirts and exuding a common goal more important than their as-yet-unnamed
party's platform.

"I want to say this as clearly as possible," Milo said. "Our purpose is to overthrow the government of
Benjamin Netanyahu."

From right, left and particularly from the center, what every candidate seems to want is Netanyahu's
"head on a platter," as Hemi Shalev, a political analyst for the Maariv newspaper, put it.

"It will be a campaign of revenge, no less than an election campaign," Shalev said.

In Monday's Likud primaries, turn-out was low, around 30 percent of the 160,000 eligible voters.

Monday-night exit polls predicted that Netanyahu would be the sure winner over Moshe Arens, his
one-time political mentor and former defense minister, who came out of retirement to challenge the
prime minister. Results were to be announced on Tuesday.

Following his likely defeat, Arens is expected to take over as defense minister on Tuesday,
succeeding Mordechai, who held his farewell ceremonies on Monday before leaving the Cabinet to
announce his candidacy to replace his former boss.

In the centrists' television appearance on Monday night, Milo strongly denounced the prime minister
for his public dismissal of Mordechai.

"I tell you, Bibi Netanyahu," he said, "Menachem Begin is turning over in his grave." He was referring to the former right-wing prime minister, whom Netanyahu often cites as his model.

Speaking forcefully, smiling frequently and even chuckling, Mordechai appeared to be reveling in his moment. He preached unity for a badly fragmented Israeli society, which was Shahak's central
theme. He concentrated on social issues -- investment in education, freedom from discrimination for immigrants, equal rights for women, a war on unemployment. He advocated the creation of a
constitution for Israel -- something many religious Israelis oppose because they fear it would place
secular society first and erode the rule of religious law.

Saying that negotiations with the Palestinians had ground to a halt, Mordechai said he would
kickstart them and push forward to the final-status negotiations, which include such touchy issues as
borders and the future of Israel. He also said he would reopen negotiations with Syria to discuss the
Golan Heights, and that he would favor returning some land in the context of a security agreement.

Netanyahu dismissed the entire center line-up with a wave, declaring that this race will be no
different than those in elections past: a contest between Likud and Labor.

"I think that what we see here is a passing phenomenon," he said, "a party of polls that has no path."

The prime minister was referring to the polls used by the centrists to determine who among them
would lead their party ticket. He also predicted that the party would end up dissolving into the Labor
Party ticket before the elections.

This prediction is not necessarily off base. Channel One reported that Mordechai told associates he
would "overturn every stone in Israel" in order to defeat Netanyahu, even if that meant joining the
Labor campaign of Ehud Barak.

Shahak is heading to the United States to raise money for the party. Just 19 days ago, newly
resigned from the army, he announced his candidacy to great excitement. But after he made several blunders that seemed a result of inexperience, the cameras turned away from him quickly.

On Monday night, he spoke fluidly, forcefully and a bit ruefully.

March 12, 1999


Israel Parties Unite for Election


Filed at 9:30 a.m. EST

By The Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Three Israeli parties that reject any land for peace compromise with the Arabs have agreed to run together for seats in parliament to maximize their strength in the May 17 election, party leaders said today.

The parties oppose the interim land-for-security agreement with the Palestinians signed in Washington last October by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, himself a right-winger who has been reluctant to concede land.

The newly unified bloc is led by Benny Begin, who quit Netanyahu's Likud Party several weeks ago to form his own party, New Herut.

Second on the list of the as yet unnamed bloc is Rehavam Zeevi, head of the Moledet party, which favors removing Palestinians from Israel and the West Bank and Gaza.

Third is Hanan Porat, a militant backer of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, who heads a new settlers party called Tekumah.

All three are serving in the present parliament.

Unifying the parties increases the chance that they will meet the threshold required for representation in parliament.

The unification agreement was initialed before dawn today after marathon negotiations, although the parties did not agree on a candidate to support for prime minister.

Polls published in today's Maariv daily showed Netanyahu and moderate Labor challenger Ehud Barak running even, with 33 and 34 percent each.

The poll gave centrist party candidate Yitzhak Mordechai 16 percent and Begin 10 percent. The Gallup poll questioned 560 Israeli adults with a 4.5 percent margin of error.

If no candidate for premier gets 50 percent of the vote, the top two finishers would face each other in a runoff two weeks later.

The poll in the Maariv said that in a second round Netanyahu and Barak remained tied with 43 percent each, and 14 percent undecided. If Mordechai and Netnayahu faced each other in a second round, Mordechai would win 46 percent to Netanyahu's 41 percent, the poll said.

A poll in the Yediot Ahronot daily produced similar results.

Israelis will cast two separate ballots, for prime minister and for parliament.

March 12, 1999


New Party Vying to Be in Middle of Israeli Politics


By DEBORAH SONTAG

TEL AVIV, Israel -- At the gala inauguration of the Center Party Wednesday night, before the
balloons dropped from the rafters and the official party jingle debuted, Mimran Yaakov, a
businessman, presented his political credentials to a reporter.

"Listen," Yaakov said, waving his Turkish cigarette for emphasis, "I am what you would call a classic
Likudnik. I was born in Morocco. I immigrated here at the age of 5. I went through all the melting
pot. And the last time around, I was Likud Party all the way, rah, rah Bibi Netanyahu.

"But now I represent the people who are very disappointed with the leadership of Benjamin
Netanyahu. And people like me, we believe it's time for an authentic candidate, someone like
Yitzhak Mordechai, who made his career despite all the hardships of prejudice and poverty."

With the Iraqi-born Mordechai at its head, the new Center Party is banking on all the Mimran
Yaakovs of this country to prove that it is not just a quixotic venture. Barely hatched, it has taken on
an ambitious task. By election day on May 17, it seeks to break the traditional Israeli voting
allegiances to the two major parties, Labor and Likud.

Judging from the crowd at the Cinerama Theater, the Center Party is most readily siphoning votes
from the Likud's core constituency of Sephardim -- Jews from North Africa and the Middle East.
Many participants Wednesday night proclaimed themselves both fed up with Netanyahu -- "Bibi, go
home!" they chanted -- and thrilled with the barrier-breaking candidacy of Mordechai, the former
defense minister and first Sephardic immigrant to run for the top office in the country.

"Yitzhak Mordechai pulled himself up to a position of power, and it would be a very powerful lesson
to this country if he could be elected -- not appointed, and not given a favor," Yaakov said.

But the party needs tens of thousands of Labor supporters, too, if it is to conquer its chief
conundrum. Early polls show that Mordechai would be the sure victor over Netanyahu in a runoff
election, which would be held June 1 if no candidate wins a majority on May 17.

But the same polls indicate that Mordechai is unlikely to get past the first round of voting; he trails the incumbent and the Labor Party candidate, Ehud Barak.

Taking the stage amid whistles and cheers from thousands of supporters, Mordechai spoke
passionately and in a hoarse voice about the need for unity. Yet at the same, he took swipes not only at Netanyahu but, for the first time, at Barak, too.

"He is incapable of healing the social ills, like I can," Mordechai said of Barak. "He cannot unite left
and right; he is inept at talking to religious people; he cannot understand either the Sephardic
mentality or that of Arab leaders."

In the tradition of break-away political parties, the Center Party began with a group of defectors.
They are Mordechai, who was dismissed as defense minister by Netanyahu in January; Amnon
Lipkin-Shahak, a former army chief of staff; Dan Meridor, a former finance minister under
Netanyahu; and Roni Milo, the former mayor of Tel Aviv.

Three of the four came from the conservative Likud; Shahak, who is liberal, had no party affiliation
when he resigned from the army this winter.

A disparate group, the leaders were brought together by their desire to oust Netanyahu. Israel, they
say, must be rescued from a political stalemate between right and left that aggravates dangerous
divisions in the country -- between doves and hawks, religious and secular, immigrants and
native-born Israelis.

"These conflicts are very bitter, and neither Likud nor Labor can bridge them," Shahak said in an
interview. "Each of them represents half the people in Israel, and each of them are totally unable to
represent the other half. We feel that we are an emergency measure. Without us, there will be no
change."

From the start, Center Party leaders faced pressure to join forces with Labor, which also seeks to
dislodge Netanyahu. Haim Ramon, a Labor member of Parliament, has renewed the call, saying that together the two parties could beat Netanyahu in the first round of voting.

Critics of the Center Party have mocked the leaders for what they see as their hubris in daring to
create a party overnight. Others have ribbed them for presenting themselves as a unifying force for
the nation when they cannot seem to agree on a party platform or a ticket of candidates for
Parliament.

The party gathering , while well-choreographed with a laser show, a balloon drop and a video
montage of Mordechai, suffered because the platform and the ticket were not ready. There was,
simply, nothing to unveil other than the jingle; the candidate was chosen in January by the other three leaders, because he is the most popular among them.

Still, it is not easy to grow a new party from scratch, and Mordechai, using his military vocabulary,
said that 85,000 Israelis had enlisted so far. Polls already predict an impressive accomplishment for the Center Party -- that it will capture more than a dozen seats in the Parliament, making it the
third-largest party.

If that happens, it will move past Shas, an ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party that took a decade to
come into its own. Even if it fails to win the prime minister's post, the Center Party is likely to
become a force to be reckoned with.

Shahak said he believed it was too early to make any predictions about the prime minister's race. "It is only five weeks since we started, and people don't know us well enough yet," he said. "I believe
this election will be decided in the last few days, or the last few hours, or the last few minutes before
people put their votes in envelopes."

While the crowd at the Cinerama was diverse, there appeared to be few Russians present, which
reflected what Shahak said was a problem: "We have no known Russian figures." But there were
many Israeli Arabs, who said they were impressed by the relationships Mordechai as defense
minister developed with Arab leaders. Israeli Arabs, who usually vote for the Labor Party, are seen
to be a crucial bloc of potential swing votes.

Since Mordechai declared his candidacy, Netanyahu and Barak have largely refrained from even
mentioning his name, much less attacking him. Their advisers suggest that Mordechai does not have the intellectual depth or vision to lead the country. But Mordechai, who proved himself shrewd and pragmatic as defense minister and army chief of staff, is reputed to be astute about surrounding himself with good advisers.

April 20, 1999


2 Who Share a Past Are Rivals for Israel's Future


By DEBORAH SONTAG

TEL AVIV, Israel -- On the wall behind his desk, Ehud Barak, the Labor Party candidate for prime minister, keeps an old photograph of himself dressed in white mechanic's overalls, descending the gangway of a Sabena Airlines jet.

In 1972, disguised as a member of the flight crew, Barak, a highly decorated former general, had just commanded the successful storming of the plane, which had been hijacked by Palestinian terrorists.

Somewhere outside the range of the picture stood Benjamin Netanyahu, then one of the lieutenants in Barak's tiny elite force, now prime minister and Barak's chief rival for the top job in Israel.

That the episode figures prominently in both of their political biographies underscores how very small the power elite is in this country of 6 million people. Personal or intimate professional connections between leaders often predate their political antagonisms.

In this case the relationship between Barak and Netanyahu -- that of a former commander and his lieutenant -- and between their families may be preventing an otherwise bruising campaign from descending into a quagmire of mudslinging. The links may have prescribed natural limits based on some degree of mutual respect and shared history between the two candidates.

Or the civility could arise from polls indicating that ad hominem attacks delivered by the candidates do not work.

Either way, a campaign that was expected to focus exclusively on character -- and specifically on Netanyahu's perceived flaws as a leader -- has more content than most Israeli political analysts give it credit for.  Ideologically, it turns on the very different attitudes toward peacemaking of Netanyahu and Barak, the leading contenders in a five-way race for prime minister.

On May 17, Israelis will cast two ballots -- one for Parliament and the other for prime minister.

The storming of the Sabena plane was a formative experience for both men, one of several defining encounters with terrorism. But they drew radically different conclusions from their experiences, shaping their very dissimilar perceptions of Israel's strength and stability in a volatile Middle East.

While the public debate has been superficial, each candidate has in recent interviews fully expressed an attitude toward peace that grows from divergent visions of Israel at age 51. Netanyahu described a country that must still be on guard against those who want to destroy the Jewish homeland; Barak saw a country strong as "a kind of a benign killer whale" in a "tough neighborhood."

Personally each man, and especially Barak, spoke of the other without the vehemence voiced by their campaigns. Although Netanyahu described his opponents on the left as consumed by a "great deal of antipathy, if not hatred," for him, he did not ascribe responsibility to Barak but rather to the Labor Party.

Barak sounded relatively gracious, if condescending, in describing the prime minister -- even if he did conclude by referring to Netanyahu with a withering metaphor.

"Bibi's not a bad man," Barak said, using Netanyahu's nickname. "He's not as kind of superficial as his political opponents from Likud or our side try to make him. He's focused. He's systematic. He's well intentioned.  He's not trying to destroy anything deliberately. He's trying to do the right things for Israel."

And then the metaphor: "I think of him as a high-quality mechanical watch with one small wheel turning the wrong way."

Twenty-five years ago, Netanyahu, a graduate student at MIT, and Barak, a graduate student at Stanford University, flew back together from the United States to fight in the 1973 war. Three years later, in an episode devastating to both of them, Netanyahu's older brother, Yonatan, a commando, was killed in the airborne raid to free hostages in Entebbe, Uganda.

Netanyahu and his brother were very close.  Barak and Yonatan Netanyahu, who once served as his military deputy, were dear friends who lived in the same apartment complex. Barak's wife, Nava, broke the news to Yonatan's girlfriend that he had been killed. And on the anniversary of the Entebbe raid, Barak and Netanyahu both faithfully visit Yonatan's grave on Mount Herzl.

Netanyahu and Barak have been running neck and neck, with Barak a couple of percentage points ahead recently. Another former general inside the intimate circle of opponents, Yitzhak Mordechai, the Center Party candidate, has been trailing them. He was a defense minister under Netanyahu and a commander under Barak.

"With all of these Center Party guys," Barak said, referring to Mordechai and the three other leaders, "I go back so far I knew their wives before they did."

In private conversations the prime minister has spoken of Barak with a kind of chilly admiration, referring to him as a man of substance who, like himself, has complex, often prickly relationships with associates.

During the interview, Netanyahu neither sang Barak's praises nor assailed him personally. He offered his public criticism: that Barak, at heart a leftist, will "fold" before Palestinian demands.

Barak hardly sounds like a leftist to outsiders. He calls the West Bank by its biblical -- and military -- name, Judea and Samaria. He talks not of integration with the Palestinians but of a "physical separation" from them.  And he says it pains him to think of conceding land to the Palestinians or the Syrians, which would be decisions made with his head, not his heart.

But unlike Netanyahu, he does not see Israel as in danger, and that makes a world of political difference.

To Netanyahu, Israel may be close to becoming an economic "miracle" but remains vulnerable. Too many concessions in the name of making peace could create what he says the Palestinians want: "a reduced Israel that is largely indefensible, huddled on a fragile coastline with a Palestinian state on the mountains above holding an Iraqi or Iranian umbrella."

To Barak, Israel has emerged as "the strongest country in a thousand miles."

"We have to get rid of this ghetto anxiety," he said, "that we are still surrounded by demons. We are surrounded by rivals that are taking care of their business and we are taking care of ours. We are stronger already, but we would be stronger still if we were united and we did not control the Arabs."

Netanyahu scorns the idea that a Western-style peace can be forged between Israel and its neighbors -- a peace built on "good will and concessions." Concessions to dictators or undemocratic governments are seen as "'signs of weakness and stimuli for additional aggression against you," he said. He wants Israel's security to come first, and mocks the many "grand ceremonies on manicured lawns" that have accompanied treaty signings.

Netanyahu has long advocated "peace with security." He insists that the Palestinians clamp down more systematically not only on terrorism but also on anti-Israeli propaganda before Israel turns over any more land in the West Bank. He says that peace should be made slowly so that it can last.

"The other way, it's faster, but you wake up not with a hangover but with a potential catastrophe," he said.

Barak, however, believes that the prime minister is holding the bar too high. He jokes that Netanyahu wants all of Israel's Arab neighbors to convert to "Jeffersonian democracies" before he will consider making peace with them.

"Netanyahu argues that if there isn't a heavenly kind of utopian security, we should not negotiate," Barak said. "I say the opposite. Start with peace, then you achieve security. We should be open-eyed about our neighbors. They are not reading Jefferson before going to sleep. Still, we have to move forward."

 

April 27, 1999


Labor Party's Hawkish Dove Zigzags to the Israeli Center


By DEBORAH SONTAG

TEL AVIV, Israel -- As a young commando, Ehud Barak placed a woman's wig on his head, squeezed into high heels and stuffed an oversized purse with explosives as he set off on a derring-do -- and ultimately successful -- mission to eliminate a Palestinian terrorist cell in
Beirut.

Twenty-six years later, wearing pants, Barak, 57, the Labor Party candidate for Prime Minister, poured himself an Israeli Goldstar beer and misquoted Robert Frost to sum up his new formula for dealing with the Palestinians.

"High fences make good neighbors," Barak said.

It unsurprising that he does not wholeheartedly embrace the idea of a Palestinian state, that he does not, in his words, "dream about it at night." That would represent too radical an evolution for Barak, a former general and the most decorated soldier in Israeli history.

But, in the mold of the late Yitzhak Rabin, Barak is a kind of hawkish dove whose animosity toward the Palestinians has dissipated over the decades. He speaks with empathy for their plight, with respect for their sovereignty, and with an unblinking pragmatism. The Palestinian state is inevitable, he said, a "de facto phenomenon," and it is "not up to us."

"I focus on the security of Israel," he said. "I assume that Palestinians will take care of their interests. We don't have to intervene with their decisions about stamps and passports and so on."

During a recent interview, Barak was as loose and engaging as he is tight and lackluster on the public stage. Election Day is May 17, and polls suggest that Barak is slightly ahead of the incumbent Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in a five-way race. An expected runoff, likely to be
between Barak and Netanyahu, the conservative Likud Party candidate, is set for June 1.

Cherub-cheeked and short-necked, Barak is not photogenic, and he reluctantly allows makeup to be applied in the service of his campaign. At rallies, he waves stiffly and hammers his talking points. But in person he is at ease, his hands fly freely, chopping through the air, crashing down on
his desk, and he is not willing to corral himself.

If he wants to engage in a long, humorous, muddled metaphor about the Middle East as an aquarium, ending with a high-pitched, "Who is the carp here? Who is the carp?" he does so. If he wants to go "off the record" to talk about a rocket re-entering the earth's atmosphere, he
does that too.

A brainy, complex and irreverent man, Barak is not a natural candidate.  His expansive discourses do not boil down easily into sound bites. What those close to him perceive as decency can come across as dullness. His relaxed self-confidence can be taken as arrogance.

And Barak, who holds a master's degree in economic engineering systems from Stanford University, is not typical. Few politicians, when they encounter television prompting equipment, examine it and conclude that it could be better made, as he did, according to Bob Shrum, one of
his American political consultants.

Also, to some critics, Barak, who holds strong, colorful opinions, can seem fuzzy as he tries hard not to be boxed as what he is: the kibbutz-born, classical piano-playing leader of the left.

In the peculiar dynamic of Israel, the left, embodied by Labor, is the political home of the European-descended elite, including business leaders and, traditionally, generals. The right, embodied by Likud, is the home of the working-class, the immigrants and outsiders. Yet polls show
that most Israelis consider themselves to be in the center, and so Barak, Netanyahu and a third candidate, former Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, are all trying hard not to be so opinionated that they alienate the vast middle.

Barak, presenting himself as part of a worldwide trend, casts himself in the image of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Gerhard Schröder -- as the leader of a political movement that is finding its way from left to center.

But as Barak leans toward the center, Netanyahu tries to push him leftward in the public eye. The Prime Minister's new television commercials, which ran Monday night, portrayed Barak with Yossi
Beilin, the Labor member most widely known as a leftist, popping out from behind him.

To play down Labor, Barak created a new movement for this campaign, called One Israel and portrayed in new commercials as a melting pot of faces. For the moment, One Israel includes Labor; the Gesher party of former Foreign Minister David Levy, which draws support from Jews of
Middle Eastern descent, and Meimad, a moderate religious party (whose members Barak undiplomatically called "less fanatical zealots").

Barak said he hopes One Israel will be a "bandwagon," allowing him to forge the broadest possible coalition without sharing power, and diluting his principles, in a unity government.

"We have already now heads of Likud branches joining us," he said.   "Even some of the settlers are behind me. I know them very intimately since I ran the command that controls Judea and Samaria. They trust me more than they trust Netanyahu."

Asked if Barak's assessment was true, Pinchas Wallerstein, who heads an organization representing Jewish settlers in the West Bank, sighed.  "How do you say 'oy vey' in English?" he asked. "It is true we trust him a lot. If he were running alone, without the other left, he'd have maybe 20 percent or more of the settlers. But given he's married to some real leftists, you can count the settler votes on only one hand."

Building on that perception, Netanyahu is trying to paint Barak as an unrepentant leftist, barely distinguishable from predecessor at the helm of the Labor Party, Shimon Peres. Barak, though, does what he can to avoid being tarred by the same brush as Peres, under whom he served as
Foreign Minister; in his offices, his picture stands beside that of Rabin, and Peres, now No. 2 in the party, is noticeably absent from the walls.

From the left, Barak is charged with failing to differentiate himself strongly from his opponents. Asked if he felt his message was muddled or diluted, Barak said, "No. I feel very clear, more than any Israeli leader in the past."

He pointed to the strong stance he has taken in the cultural war between religious and secular -- or less observant -- Israelis. He said he was not afraid, like other politicians, of challenging the ultra-Orthodox by standing up for the rights of Reform and Conservative Jews; by pushing for the
rights of those Russian immigrants whom the chief rabbis do not recognize as Jewish because they are unable to prove their lineage; and by proposing the conscription into the army of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva boys, who are automatically exempted for Torah study.

"We should equally bear the burden," Barak said. "It's a moral question.   It's not against the religious. What the hell is the story? I read in Maimonides that the groom should come out from under the huppah," or wedding canopy, "to help Israel defend itself. So why the hell a guy cannot on a normal sunny day, go by foot from Bnei Brak, walk 900 yards to the computer center in Ramat Gan, and enlist?

"I served in uniform for 35 years, and I can tell you frankly that we don't need F-15 pilots out of the yeshiva buchers," or boys, he said. "We are not going to end up drafting many of them. Still, it's the principle. The very shadow cast by my initiative will shape their readiness to negotiate."

Many Russian immigrants, who consider themselves Jewish but are not considered Jewish under religious law, cannot marry here -- intermarriages are not performed -- or be buried in state cemeteries.

Barak said he is considering many ways to ease their dilemma, including eliminating the "nationality" category, which is really a religious or ethnic identification category, from Israeli identification cards.

"Every citizen should feel at home whether he's a Jew or Christian or Muslim," Barak said. "Why are we distinguishing between people on the ID cards?"

For most of the last 15 years, the Interior Ministry, which controls the identification cards, has been in the hands of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, whose leader, Aryeh Deri, a former Interior Minister, was recently convicted of corruption charges. Following his sentencing, Barak announced that if elected he would take the Interior Ministry from Shas and put it under the control of a Russian immigrant party.

That is partly electioneering. Russians immigrants, while generally conservative, nonetheless represent a critical bloc of potential swing votes in a country where people tend to be born either Labor or Likud.  Barak ordered all calls during the interview to be held except for those from his wife, Nava, or from a Russian radio station -- "our most precious electorate," he called their audience.

As he was talking about the great potential for Israel to become a leading society, Barak grew mesmerized by the tape recorder before him. "It works well, huh?" he said, after a pause. "It's Japanese. It should."

A key theme of Barak's campaign is that Israel under Netanyahu is "stuck." The first thing to come unstuck, Barak said, would be the most recent peace agreement with the Palestinians, negotiated at the Wye Plantation in Maryland last fall. He said he would try to return more land quickly to the Palestinians, even though he finds himself "in pain just thinking of giving up some of these pieces of ground."

Barak volunteered that security analysts believe that the freeze in the peace process has helped reduce terrorism, specifically suicide attacks by Islamic fundamentalists opposed to making peace with Israel.

"Reading that in a simple way," he said, "might lead to the conclusion that it's better not to pursue peace. But I think if we don't, at a certain point, the violence would erupt like a volcano. It could lead us back not just to the point where Rabin was assassinated but back a few generations."

Barak said he would also immediately reopen negotiations with the Syrians, and resume the thorny final status talks with the Palestinians.

He proposes a "physical separation" from the Palestinians, without which, he said, he fears that Israel would end up "a binational state or an apartheid state."

He calls for what he describes as "four security red lines": a united Jerusalem under Israel's sovereignty; no return to 1967 borders; no modern armed forces west of the Jordan River; and the consolidation of Jewish settlers in the West Bank into several large blocs under Israeli control. Saying he hoped that the Palestinians and Jordanians would forge a confederation, Barak added that he was happy to hear they were considering it "since we cannot patronize their judgment."

In an interview with the Haaretz newspaper published on Sunday, Barak said he would consider retaining the portfolio of Defense Minister to oversee the sensitive negotiations. The announcement was analyzed as a possible jab at Mordechai, the natural candidate for the job.

But it is his candidacy that will almost certainly force the elections into a runoff, and Barak has been negotiating with Mordechai to withdraw from the race and join forces with him.

"It's a waste of energy to go into a runoff when we could join hands and win the first one," Barak said. "It gives Netanyahu another two weeks to manipulate. And it might turn the election into a kind of Middle Eastern bazaar, about who will be able to seduce or bribe more effectively some small parties to line up behind him."

 

May 3, 1999


Polls Show Netanyahu Slipping


Filed at 7:23 a.m. EDT

By The Associated Press

PETACH TIKVAH, Israel (AP) -- During a recent stop on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's campaign trial, more people went to the supermarket across the street than to his re-election rally.

Fifteen days before the vote, polls show Netanyahu on a steady decline and his public appearances are turning sour.

He has lost key allies from within his Likud party and his opponent's posters around the country target him with slogans like ``Only a chump would vote twice for Netanyahu,'' and ``Anything but Netanyahu.''

His aides say privately they are starting to worry. Netanyahu's American campaign strategist, Arthur Finkelstein, was brought to Israel over the weekend and will stay until after the elections. But the premier, who won by a very narrow margin in 1996, insists he will win again.

``The final poll is on election day,'' Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel's Channel 2 TV Sunday. ``I was lower in the polls last elections and I won then.''

A poll published Friday showed that Netanyahu's Labor challenger Ehud Barak is widening his lead. In a June 1 runoff, Barak would defeat Netanyahu, 50 percent to 42 percent. The survey, conducted by the Dahaf agency and published in the Yediot Ahronot daily, questioned 900 Israeli adults and quoted a margin of error of 3 percentage points. A poll conducted by Channel 2 yielded identical results.

In 1996, Netanyahu was able to sway voters shaken by a string of suicide bombings carried out by Islamic militants. He promised security for Israel's citizens before peace with the Palestinians and sweeping economic plans to privatize state-owned corporations.

But over the past three years, the peace process has foundered and an economic boom has turned into a recession with rising unemployment.

During his three years in office, however, Netanyahu has developed a reputation for overcoming political hurdles.

After a week of ads appealing for voters to stay the course, Netanyahu went back to his old strategy Sunday, airing scenes of carnage from pre-1996 election bus bombings. Images from terror attacks that took place under his administration were not included in the new ads.

Communications Minister Limor Livnat defended the tactic. ``These are pictures which will remind people what happened here under a left-wing government,'' she said.

But some dubbed the move a desperate act that won't work again.

``The relentless repetition of the same clips accompanied by brainwashing slogans, an innovation for Netanyahu three years ago, are used goods,'' wrote Meir Schnitzer, the TV critic for the Maariv newspaper.

During a visit to Kiryat Malachi last week, a working-class town that gave Netanyahu 75 percent of its vote in the 1996 election, the premier received less than a warm welcome. The town has been hard hit by Netanyahu's economic policies, leaving a flood of unemployed workers.

In the Bedouin town of Rahat on Sunday, Netanyahu was thinly applauded until the mayor, a member of the Israeli Islamic party, got up on stage and told the audience that Netanyahu has been bad for Arabs.  His words were greeted by thunderous applause.

Israel's Arab community, about 18 percent of the population, traditionally support the left-wing Labor party in large numbers.

And in the Jewish city of Petach Tikvah, east of Tel Aviv, families escaped the stuffy atmosphere of a small, crowded hall Thursday halfway through the premier's speech.

Of the 300 who attended the rally, all were hand-picked by the local Likud party branch and half were children. Unlike in 1996, and throughout Netanyahu's term, journalists were given no access to the premier during any campaign event.

``Why should I go and support him now? The country's a mess and there are no jobs,'' said Batya Shamir, a 55-year-old housewife who said she supported the premier in 1996 but would not again. This time she will vote for Barak.

Reports suggest that several members of Netanyahu's Likud, who went from close allies to bitter foes over the past three years, are already preparing to challenge him for the party leadership if he is defeated on May 17.

Conservative former generals including Yossi Peled and Uri Saguy have abandoned Netanyahu altogether and are publicly backing Barak.

But Netanyahu's core support from Sephardic Jews -- those of Middle East or North African descent -- and Russian immigrants seems to be holding.

Sephardic Jews still harbor resentment against Barak's Labor party, led by Jews of European descent, for the ill-treatment they received upon immigrating in the 1950s. The elitist attitude of Barak's inner circle toward Sephardic Jews was the No. 1 issue raised by supporters in Petach Tikvah.

Tiki Dayan, a Barak supporter and prominent member of the Tel Aviv arts scene, recently called Netanyahu's Sephardic followers ``riffraff.''

Barak, who was present at the rally, distanced himself from her remarks a day later and Ms. Dayan apologized, but Netanyahu quickly turned the slur into his main campaign issue.

Netanyahu told supporters at a Sunday night rally that ``I'm proud riffraff'' and a campaign ad by his Likud Party said: ``Barak clapped, laughed and didn't say anything.''

May 18, 1999


THE OVERVIEW

In a Sharp Rebuff to Netanyahu, Barak Is
Voted Premier

By DEBORAH SONTAG

JERUSALEM -- Israelis overwhelmingly elected Ehud Barak, the Labor Party leader, as prime minister on Monday, rejecting the tumultuous leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, whose galvanizing character has dominated Israel for three years.

In a complete reshuffling of the political deck, Israelis also remade their parliament: The right wing withered as the center grew with four new parties, changing the balance of power.

Because Barak can now assemble a large block of secular parties, he has the option to form a government without any ultra-Orthodox representation. The ultra-Orthodox appear to have lost their exclusive role as a swing vote between left and right to the Russian immigrants and other centrists.

By early Tuesday, with 94 percent of the vote counted, Barak was leading with 56.1 percent of the vote, to Netanyahu's 43.74 percent. It was the second time that Israel had elected a prime minister directly.  Barak now has 45 days in which to form a government.

A highly decorated former general, Barak, 57, is a dovish hawk in the image of his mentor, Yitzhak Rabin, and the vote is a resounding call for a revival of the languishing Israeli-Palestinian peace effort.

"If Yitzhak is looking down on us from where he may, he knows that we together will fulfill his legacy," Barak said in his victory speech. "We need to strengthen our country's security by moving forward to peace agreements."

Barak also sounded a call for unity. "It is my intention to be everyone's prime minister," he said. "All of Israel is part of each of us, and we extend a courageous hand to all, to secular and religious, to those of Ashkenazi and of Sephardic background, to those who immigrated from the former Soviet Union and from Ethiopia, to the Arabs, the Bedouins and the Circassians."

Within 35 minutes of the first television exit polls, before Barak made any public comment, Netanyahu not only conceded defeat, but stepped down as the leader of the conservative Likud Party.

In the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian officials gloated over the political demise of a leader whom they considered hostile and intransigent. Israeli Radio reported open celebrations in the office of Paesltinian leader Yasser Arafat, who called to congratulate Barak.

"Netanyahu fell into the trash bin of history," Fraih Abu Meddien, the Palestinian justice minister said in an interview in Gaza. "He will be gone forever and good riddance. He's a racist and no other Israeli leader will ever be as bad as he was. The Palestinian people were patient for three years through his arrogance. We helped bring him down. We are the ones who made this statue fall."

Shortly before midnight in Tel Aviv, a huge celebration erupted in Yitzhak Rabin Square, the site of the late prime minister's assassination. With mixed emotions, tens of thousands of mostly young Israelis both cheered Barak's victory and lit candles in honor of Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995.

"Rabin, we have won!" they shouted repeatedly into the balmy evening air, crying and hugging each other.

At the Tel Aviv Hilton Hotel, a few miles away, Netanyahu, a fixture in Israeli politics for 15 years, strode off the political stage quickly, cleanly, and with cordial congratulations to his opponent. Flanked by his wife, Sarah, and by a grim Ariel Sharon, his foreign minister, Netanyahu, with a serene look on his face, addressed weeping supporters.

"The nation decided and we respect that decision," Netanyahu said, stunning his audience, which is unaccustomed to the sight of their prime minister conceding anything. "That is the way it has to be in a democracy."

Netanyahu's Likud Party, traditionally one of the two major parties of Israel, suffered from his collapse at the polls. Netanyau's Likud coalition held 32 seats in 1996, and the party was down to about 20 with slightly fewer than half the votes counted.

Many of the defectors left for Shas, the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party.  In a stunning gain, Shas seemed to have garnered six new seats in the new parliament, giving it about 17, making it the third largest party after Likud and Labor, election analysts said.

But a larger representation does not mean more power. "Shas is in for four lean years now," Shahar Ilan, a religion reporter for the newspaper Haaretz said Monday, "whether it is a barely wanted coalition partner or whether it remains outside."

While Shas had endorsed Netanyahu, it has swung between left and right governments before as a supporter of the peace effort.

But in these elections and probably in the new parliament, Russian immigrants, who seem to have split their ballots between the two candidates, represented the swing vote.

"We resisted all efforts to take sides," Natan Sharansky, leader of the Russians' Yisrael Baaliyah Party, said in an interview. "We were the party of the new immigrants, but now we can be considered simply as the one real moderate force, like a bridge between secular and nonsecular, left and right."

He added, "Look, I'm sorry for Bibi, we're old friends." He said the defeat of Netanyahu was "mainly personal, not ideological."

But part of Netanyahu's defeat was not merely a rejection of him, but of the right wing's perceived obstructionist agenda on the peace effort. Most Israelis not only endorse the peace effort, but accept that a Palestinian state is inevitable.

According to a statement from the prime minister's office, President Clinton sent Netanyahu a message: "I appreciate the hard work you did.  You're a strong man with a strong historical awareness and we all believe you will be back."

Also according to the statement, Netanyahu responded, "Thank you very much but I'm taking a long vacation."

Many Israelis were driving through the streets beeping their horns, or popping the corks on champagne bottle. "As soon as Bibi said he was resigning, the champagne came out as did the pistachios, cake and popcorn," said Lisa Feinmesser, 51, an administrative assistant in Jerusalem. "We're so sick of the man."

Looking drawn and defeated, Gila Gamliel, a 24-year-old Likudnik who lost her bid for parliament, said, "Despite the great accomplishments of the government, everyone was against us and against the prime minister out of personal hatred."

A kibbutz-born Israeli who spent 35 years in the army and retired as chief of staff, Barak is brainy and complex. He has confidence in his own judgments, which are based, like those of any serious military strategist, as much on input as intuition. Friends say he is his own best counsel.

He has conducted his campaign like a military exercise. Building on a network of army buddies, he revitalized the Labor Party's aging infrastructure with a far more professional campaign on the ground.

Barak also relied on layers of American consultants, including two top American pollsters, who field-tested every question raised by Barak about the mood of the Israeli public and the sectors within it.

He personally sought to commandeer a remake of the Labor Party, which is traditionally both leftist and elitist in a peculiarly Israeli combination, into a party of the center. He ran at the head of the One Israel coalition, forged with Meimad, a moderate Orthodox group, and the Sephardic Gesher Party of David Levy, the Moroccan-born former foreign minister of Netanyahu.

As a moderate at the helm of the left, he sees himself following the lead of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

Barak's political advertising has stressed his military background, which includes a string of derring-do missions that are an integral part of Israeli legend. His campaign has repeatedly broadcast images of him liberating a Sabena airplane from Palestinian terrorists, for instance.

In interviews, he has said he would move quickly to kick start the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace effort, to plan the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, and to reopen negotiations with Syria over Lebanon and the Golan Heights.

Before the elections, many Israelis said they considered Barak and Netanyahu to be cut from the same cloth, as Ashkenai members of the elite who both served in the same elite military unit and both studied in the United States. Israelis said they were confused about what differentiated the candidates' stand on peace, since both said they supported a tough peace with security.

But the two men hold very different views about Israel's relative position in the Mideast, which fundamentally shape different approaches to peacemaking. Netanyahu believed Israel to be in a constant state of threat from its Arab neighbors, approached them with suspicion and refused to make concessions until concessions were given.

Barak, on the other hand, sees Israel as the strongest country in a tough neighborhood, negotiating from a vantage point of greater military might, higher economic standing and a sounder, more democratic political system.

He thinks peace agreements must be reached before conditions are perfect, and that relationships should be sown to encourage cooperation on security issues.

"I want to give a new momentum to peace agreements," he said in an interview in April. "I'm not going to compromise any of our vital interest. I will definitely fight against terror, I did it all my life. But I learned during many years, decades of fighting that the right way to bring about personal security to Israelis and overall security to Israel is through peace agreement with our neighbors."

Four and a quarter million Israelis voted, almost all the adults in the country. Voter turn-out is always high here. Statistics say it is 80 percent, but, given that about 10 percent of the population lives abroad and there are no absentee ballots, the figure is closer to 90 percent.

Hundreds of Israelis have been arriving from abroad to vote, too.

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