The above projections give the Labor party little chance to form the next government. The party that for years was undisputed ruler of Israeli politics may become a minor faction.

After experimenting with direct elections of the Prime Minister, Israel has gone back to a "pure" coalition system, in which the Prime Minister is chosen based on votes for the Knesset parties, rather than on separate elections. The effect is to discourage the smaller parties, as people wish to express their choice for Prime Minister. The Center party, Herut and Gesher will disappear, and the ultra-orthodox Shas party will be reduced from 17 to 11 seats. The right-wing parties will absorb many of these votes. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the Israeli electorate has moved to the right because of long term structural changes in Israeli society, because of the Intifada, and because of the lack of leadership on the Israeli left. In the past, when elections were held separately for Prime Minister Labor has also been hurt by "white ballot" and stay - home campaigns of the Arab parties and Jewish radicals, who insisted that both candidates were the same. This helped elect rightist Benjamin Nethanyahu by a razor thin margin over peace architect Shimon Peres in 1996.

Current polls predict that Amram Mitzna or Haim Ramon may beat Benjamin Eliezer in Labor party primaries to be held November 19, and become the next party leader. Mitzna has an excellent record as mayor of Haifa. He came from behind to win the mayoral race, and has managed to reduce the city debt and increase city services in a time of severe economic hardship. However, political inexperience and organizational weakness have marred Mitzna's campaign for labor leadership. With less than three months to erase the huge lead of the right, the campaign has little hope of success. One factor that may help Labor, is that voters will not know who will head the Likud list and be their candidate for Prime Minister until primaries are held in that party, and this may not happen for some time. An election with such a brief effective campaigning period is unprecedented in Israeli politics.

Ramon's credentials are that he managed to effectively dismantle the Histadruth Labor union, that had been the mainstay of the Labor party's organizational strength. He saddled Israel with an expensive national health insurance system, as well as helping to sabotage the campaign of Shimon Peres in 1996 by inaction. None of the three contenders have projected a vision that might inspire voter confidence, and none of them have seriously addressed the economic issues, the settlements or policy toward the Palestinians, though Amram Mitzna has come closest to winning the hearts of moderate Israelis by promising to end the occupation unilaterally if necessary.

Within the Likud, Ariel Sharon is challenged from the right on "security issues" by former PM Benjamin (Bibi) Nethanyahu. Sharon has pledged to hold open primaries in the Likud at the earliest possible date. Though popular within the Likud, Bibi may not do as well as Sharon in general elections because the Israeli public remember him as a divisive and extremist figure, prone to "in your face" foreign policy statements that embarrassed Israel without accomplishing anything positive. The early elections, impending US war with Iraq and Sharon's statesmanlike position regarding the unity government, which meets the approval of most Israelis, are likely to hurt Nethanyahu in the primaries. However, an intensification of terror attacks by the Palestinians would most certainly help Nethanyahu, who has attacked Sharon for being "soft on terror" and giving in to demands of the United States and of Labor party coalition partners to keep the door open for negotiations.

Sharon is viewed by many outside Israel as a "war criminal" and monster, and is not beloved of those Israelis who remember him for instigating the bloody and needless war in Lebanon. However, a triumph of Nethanyahu and his right wing allies over Sharon in the Likud party primaries would not advance the cause of peace and moderation. Nethanyahu, unlike Sharon, is a scion of the Revisionist Herut movement that forms the keystone of the Likud party. He is ideologically committed to the "Greater Israel" movement and to opposition to a Palestinian state. He would most likely form a narrow right wing government with no commitment to a settlement freeze or negotiations at all, and is liable to pursue a policy in opposition to the moderating influence of the United States, and pursue adventurist and demagogic military solutions such as those advocated by Yisrael Beitenu party head Avigdor Lieberman, including perhaps an attempt to remove PNA Chairman Yasser Arafat from office by force.

Both major parties, as well as the Israeli left, have concentrated their rhetoric and attention on security issues, neglecting the economy. The collapse of the Israeli economy is the almost untold story of 2002, and it promises to get worse. The end of the high tech boom and the collapse of the tourist industry have thrown tens of thousands out of work, and reduced once prosperous families to charity. The government has cut welfare services dramatically, throwing the newly impoverished on the mercies of private charities, which have sprung up to fill the gap as best they can. This year's budgetary cuts will produce even greater hardship, but the Sharon-led unity government had its mind on settlements and security fences, and not on the economy. Labor would certainly have a good case to take to the electorate in the miserable performance of this government regarding the economy as well as the handling of the Intifada. In normal times and normal countries, the sorry state of the economy would be a decisive issue. However, the current leadership of the Labor party cannot very well criticize the mess that it helped to make, and in Israel, as always, it is easy to turn all eyes to the "security" issue at the expense of all else.

Ami Isseroff,

Rehovot,

Israel