A Monumental Moment in the History of Israel

However much Israelis may disagree in their politics, all would concur that this Wednesday’s national elections are likely to be the most fateful in their country’s history. The outcome of the voting will determine not just the route that Israel will follow in coming years. It will also help shape policies and guide the wider course of events in the Arab world around Israel.

The key and inseparable issues in the electoral campaign are the peace process and national security. Prime Minister Shimon Peres, with his vision of a more cooperative “new Middle East,” wants to bring to completion the political settlement with the Palestinians as the surest means of safeguarding Israel’s long-term well-being. He further professes to see hope of eventually reaching an accord with Syria. His opponent, Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks for and to those Israelis whose distrust of Arab intentions toward Israel runs deep. He would halt any further yielding of West Bank territory to the Palestinians, stopping the peace process in its tracks. And he sees no strategic gain in trading Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights for a peace agreement with Syria.

But for many, these stark differences don’t necessarily provide clear-cut choices. For the first time, elections will find Israelis casting two votes. One will be for prime minister: Peres or Netanyahu. The other will be for one of the 21 political parties competing for seats in the Knesset. Opinion polls show Peres and Netanyahu in a very tight race. The polls also suggest that there is going to be a lot of vote splitting. Many of those who will vote for Labor’s Peres or Likud’s Netanyahu seem disinclined to cast their second vote for either of their parties; instead, large numbers might turn to one of the smaller parties.

Two voting blocs, each representing about 10% of a potential 4 million voters, could be of unusual importance in deciding who will be prime minister and how he will form his government. There’s a chance that many of Israel’s Arab citizens, who had been assumed to be largely in Peres’ camp, might choose to boycott the election to protest Israel’s military offensive in Lebanon last month, which claimed a high toll in civilian lives. Meanwhile, many of the country’s substantial number of recent Russian immigrants are expected to cast their votes for a new party headed by one of their own, the former dissident hero Natan Sharansky. His party could win as many as six seats, a significant 5% of Knesset representation.

Whoever is the next prime minister and whatever the composition of his coalition government, the differences that so deeply and painfully divide Israelis on the issues of peace and security are sure to remain. All Israelis, for good reason, have some fears about what the future could hold. Many are prepared to subordinate those fears to the hope that a secure peace can be negotiated. Wednesday’s vote will show whether that many is a majority.