Some might think that Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Barak was so popular in 1999 that the Israeli voters elected him.
Wrong, according to a report by The Jerusalem Post on December 31, which said that Barak was only the best of the worse, for the Israelis only wanted his rival Benjamin Netanyahu out.
But in the current election battle, things will be different, according to the paper, which says that Barak is losing even the support of his camp.
However, many Israelis are not so enthusiastic about the other runner for the February elections, Likud leader Ariel Sharon.
Following is the full report as published on the paper’s Internet edition:
Support for PM Ehud Barak is eroding even in his own camp, where an unprecedented number of voters say they plan to stay home on election day.
Rami Danon didn't really want to vote for Ehud Barak in 1999. But his friends convinced him to support the Labor party candidate just to get Binyamin Netanyahu out of power. "I won't make the same mistake twice," says the 28-year- old Tel Avivian. "This election, I'm going to follow my conscience," says Danon. "I'm not going to vote."
Danon is not alone. One out of every five Israelis who voted for Barak last time plan to either stay home or cast a blank ballot on February 6, according to a survey conducted this week by the Geocartography Research Institute.
"That sort of figure - 20 percent - is unheard of in an Israeli election," says Geocartography's director Prof. Avi Degani. "Usually you have 1-1.5% who don't vote on principle. The figure is particularly startling in light of the critical issues at stake in this election," says Degani, who regards the trend as "a serious statement. It shows that many voters are fed up with Barak and can't live with [Ariel]Sharon."
Barak already knows that he is in trouble with the Arab voters, whose leaders have urged them to boycott the election. But the prime minister is floundering even in his own backyard.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in the stronghold of the secular Left, Rehov Sheinkin in Tel Aviv.
On a sunny day this week, young Israelis dressed in de-rigueur black ambled past the chic cafes and body-piercing shops in the city's Bohemian center.
Suddenly, the voice of Nadia Matar wafted over the street, warning Jews "to do everything to make sure Barak is not elected." The tape-recorded message by the leader of the right-wing Women in Green movement was broadcast from a parked van off Rehov Sheinkin, and was reinforced by a small team of volunteers wearing green baseball caps proclaiming "The Land of Israel is in our heart." They were marketing a Greater Eretz Yisrael in the Left's home front.
The incongruous scene was not lost on one sympathetic passerby. "What are you doing here?" he asked the volunteers. "This is the heart of the enemy." But the Sheinkin regulars didn't even flinch when they saw the slogans of the Women in Green.
The "enemy" was not in much of a fighting mood this week. In fact, in many cases, the "enemy" was not even planning to vote.
Out of a random sample of 10 people on Rehov Sheinkin who voted for Barak last year, only two were sure they'd vote for the prime minister again in the coming elections. The rest said they were either going to stay home on election day or cast a blank ballot.
Dan Goldenblatt, who supported Barak - and the marijuana party (Alei Yarok) - in 1999, says the prime minister has been a great disappointment.
"I gave him a lot of credit and he hasn't delivered. Even the secular revolution that he promised is turning out to be just a vote-getting tactic.
"For me, it's a basic issue," says Goldenblatt, who is "tired of seeing generals run the country" and plans to cast a blank ballot.
Hadas, a twenty-something-year-old, who admits to being more interested in crystals than politics, also voted for Barak last year. This time she is staying home. "Neither candidate is good."
And Marcella, who runs a purse shop, says that when she voted for Barak in 1999 she thought she would get a "fresh new leader" who would "give us a normal life and make this a fun place to be. Instead, people are afraid to go out of the house. I don't believe any politician anymore. I probably won't vote at all this time."
It's not only the bohemian crowd of Rehov Sheinkin that has lost faith in Barak. It's also the more traditional Left - people like longtime peace activist Lilia Kisch. "I don't know who I'll vote for," says the Tel Aviv grandmother. "If there was someone like Shulamit Aloni - or even Shimon Peres - leading the peace camp, I would vote. But Barak is not a man of peace. Sometimes he even sounds like his heart is with the settlers."
Support for Barak is also eroding among more hawkish left-wingers like David Fin, a 40-year-old Givatayim resident, who has voted for a left-wing party and/or candidate in every election.
Fin voted for Barak and Meretz in the last election. Now Fin is among the 15% of former Barak supporters who may back Sharon.
"But this time, there is no way I'm voting for Barak," says Fin. "He's willing to give up any amount of territory just to remain in power. He's selling Israel at bargain-basement prices. He shouldn't even be negotiating at all now after the Camp David talks failed. He should have let the Palestinians come crawling to him - instead of the other way around."
"There's no question that the Left is in a state of confusion," says Meretz faction head MK Zehava Gal-On. "We're in bad shape," she says, using the Hebrew expression al hapanim. "It would be a mistake for Barak to think the Left is in his pocket.
"This time he can't take us for granted," says Gal-On. "We have to work to get left-wingers out to vote."
The one thing that could galvanize the Left to head to the polls is a peace accord with the Palestinians. "That's the surest way," says Gal-On. "If Barak, Arafat and Clinton initial a peace agreement on the White House lawn, that will create a different atmosphere, a momentum."
That's certainly the consensus on Rehov Sheinkin. "Would I vote if there's a peace accord?" asks Goldenblatt. "Yes, I think that would be the only thing that would make me vote for Barak."
"Seeing is believing," says a skeptical Hadas. "But if a Hanukka miracle happened and Barak reached a peace agreement, then, yes, I probably would vote for him."
Geocartography's poll, conducted on Sunday, shows that if Barak comes up with a peace accord, his support from the Left jumps from 45% to 61% and his support among the electorate as a whole climbs by 9 points from 24 to 33%. Two thirds of that support comes from voters who are either undecided or say they weren't planning to vote at all.
According to that poll, a peace agreement would narrow Sharon's lead from 14 points (38% to 24%) to 4 points (37% to 33%) - which is within the margin of error.
What isn't clear is what happens if the public objects to the content of the peace agreement. The Geocartography poll asked "if there was a peace agreement, who would you vote for in the election?" But when the pollsters asked specific questions about an accord, they found greater opposition. For instance, 50% of voters object to an agreement that would continue the current arrangement on the Temple Mount and divide up east Jerusalem to give control over Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians - a proposal that is not even as far-reaching as the one now on the table which would give Palestinians sovereignty over the Mount.
"On the one hand, the more details people hear about the accord, the more they object to it," says Degani. "But when you ask them if they support an accord, period, they seem to put their objections aside and say: 'that's the price we have to pay to have an agreement.'"
Nevertheless, Degani acknowledges that if the voters are told that an accord would grant Palestinians sovereignty over the Temple Mount, "support for Barak would decrease." That became painfully clear to Barak this week when Meimad, the dovish religious wing of One Israel, announced that it would oppose such an accord and would withdraw its support for the prime minister if he backed it.
"Barak is liable to lose his last supporters from the religious-traditional camp if he proceeds with this," said Rabbi Yehuda Gilad, secretary-general of Meimad. "We cannot support an agreement that would grant Palestinians sovereignty over the Temple Mount," said Gilad. "The Temple Mount gives spiritual meaning to Zionism; it's a Jewish symbol that is beyond dispute.
"Imagine if the Palestinians demanded that in return for peace we remove the Star of David from our flag. Could we agree to this? In my eyes, giving away the Temple Mount is much more damaging," said Gilad. "Even though we, in Meimad, are for a peace agreement, we would have to say no to one that included that."
But all polls show that a peace agreement would increase overall support for Barak. It would also enable him to focus his campaign more sharply and narrowly.
"If the prime minister comes up with a peace accord, he can put his energies into winning the political center," says Meretz MK Mossi Raz. "But if there is no agreement, he'd better not court the center because that will cost him the peace camp," explains Raz, who supported Shimon Peres's bid to run for prime minister.
"If Barak tries to win the center by showing how tough he is with Arafat or the Palestinians, he can lose the Left. Even though left-wingers are boiling with anger, they are still going to vote for him. But one small mistake on Barak's part and that could change," warns Raz.
"If, in order to appease the Right, Barak sends helicopter gunships to attack Arab villages, I'll just stay home on election day," says Linda Livni, a Jerusalemite who had also hoped Peres would run.
Without A peace agreement, Barak must have a more complex campaign with different messages for different camps. For instance, Raz suggests that in a bid to win back Arab support, Barak should remind them that Sharon sparked the intifada with his controversial visit to the Temple Mount. Yet even Raz acknowledges that the visit was merely an excuse for the rioting and that such a message would not go over well with the Jewish public.
"This must be said in Arabic, and not repeated every day in Hebrew," says Raz.
"There must be a different emphasis for different voters."
What is clear is that if Barak is unable to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, his campaign will have to target Sharon.
That will be enough to get some disenchanted leftists, like Lilia Kisch, into the polling booth.
When asked who she'll vote for, the Tel Aviv peace activist initially answers "no one." "Barak scares me," she says. But asked about the prospect of Ariel Sharon leading the country, Kisch responds: "Now that scares me even more. He got us into Lebanon. You know, on second thought, I might just vote for Barak to keep Sharon out of power because Sharon really terrifies me."
Most left-wingers who plan to vote say they are casting their ballot against Sharon. "Barak hasn't been the kind of leader who could mobilize the Left and give us hope and confidence," says American-born Livni. "But I'll probably vote for him anyway for the same reason I voted for Hubert Humphrey in the US election of 1968: to keep the other guy - then it was Nixon - out of office. Sharon is racist and I don't believe he'll deal fairly with the Palestinians or with Israeli Arab citizens."
"I think many Israelis will swallow the bitter pill and vote for Barak because of what the alternative represents," says Peace Now activist Janet Aviad. "Sharon symbolizes the tragedy of Lebanon. He is the motor behind the settlement enterprise; he is the negation of peace."
An anti-Sharon campaign won't be enough to lure all left-wingers to the polls.
For one thing, Israelis on the far Left say there is no distinction between the two candidates. The only difference between them is that Barak is able to harness international support for his views, says journalist Uri Avnery, a leader of Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc). "The real leftists know that Barak's right-wing message is true and therefore they will not vote for him," writes Avnery.
That claim infuriates Aviad. "Let's see Sharon stand behind an offer to give the Palestinians even 50% of the territories, let alone the 90% or 95% that Barak has offered," says Aviad. "To say there's no difference between them is ridiculous; that's the blindness of the extreme Left."
But even the more moderate members of the Left aren't entirely convinced.
"Who knows? Maybe there is something to that saying: Only the Right can make peace," says Goldenblatt. "All I know is that unless there's a peace accord I'm not going to vote."
"Will things be worse with Sharon? Maybe they will be," Rami Danon shrugs. "But I have to follow my conscience this time and vote for no one."
Idit, one of the few Rehov Sheinkin patrons who said she plans to vote for Barak, says it's still early in the campaign to come to conclusions about voters' intentions. "A lot of my left-wing friends say they're not going to vote. But I think things will heat up in the course of the campaign and they will realize what's at stake."
Indeed some voters weren't even sure who was running this time. Maybe, then, it's no wonder that 38% of voters - according to the Geocartography poll - are still undecided or planning not to vote.
Goldenblatt thought Peres could still announce his candidacy. Marcella believed Binyamin Netanyahu was still in the race. And David Fin thought he could vote for a party in what marks the first time Israelis will go to the polls to select just a prime minister.
But leaders of the Left are not optimistic. "We're looking at a 20-point spread," notes Raz, citing other polls. "If there is no peace agreement, Barak's chances of winning this election are very slim."
"I don't even want to think about what will happen if there is no agreement," says Gal-On. "As far as the election goes, let's just say the Left will have much less motivation to vote." Meretz spokesman Yossi Gazit sums it up this way: "The ability of the peace camp to mobilize for the election campaign depends entirely on whether there is a peace agreement."
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
