David Parsons, Jan. 29, 2003

It is tempting to declare certain parties as clear-cut winners and losers in Israel's national elections on Tuesday, after Likud and Shinui scored impressive gains and Labor and Meretz were whittled down to their ideological core.

But returning prime minister Ariel Sharon set a fittingly sober tone in his late-night victory speech, knowing the nation still confronts daunting war-and-peace issues and has little room right now to open up the fragile religious-secular divide in Israeli society.

Yesterday's balloting indeed confirmed a major rightward shift in the Israeli electorate since the collapse of Oslo and outbreak of the violent Palestinian intifada two years ago. Factoring out the Israeli Arab vote, it is evident that some 70% of Jewish voters are now hawkish on the Palestinians and supportive of Sharon's get-tough approach.

As a result, the Labor party of David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin - the party that founded the state and built its institutions - went down to a truly "historic" defeat.

Laborites were already blaming their loss on a lack of time and personality, contending their new and non-charismatic chairman Amram Mitzna had only 60 days to introduce himself to the general public. But like Ehud Barak's trouncing at the hands of Sharon two winters ago, this crushing defeat is not about flawed personalities, but failed policies. The nation simply rejected Mitzna's formula for quick, unilateral surrender to terrorism.

Instead, Sharon appears to have broad support for his go-slow approach that refuses to reward Palestinian violence and relies heavily on strategic US backing to decelerate the international drive for Palestinian statehood.

Yet even at his moment of triumph, Sharon reached out to Labor in his victory speech, saying he wanted to revive the national unity government of the past two years, along with its coalition guidelines. Those guidelines would implicitly allow Sharon to work gradually over time with the Bush Administration towards a demilitarized and quasi-sovereign Palestinian state.

He again vaguely referred to his own long-term plan last night "which can bring Israel victory over terror and open a door to real peace."

The trouble is that, even with such mass public support for his appeal for national unity in time of crisis, Sharon is going to have a difficult time forming a broad, stable government ready to push his agenda. Labor refuses to sit with Likud, Shinui refuses to sit with the ultra-Orthodox, and even Sharon is anxious to avoid the far-right National Union. Someone has to give.

Likud had an opportunity to avoid some of this problem by securing more than 40 Knesset seats, which it was projected to do before a wave of campaign scandals started shearing off support some six weeks ago. Shinui in particular benefited from a substantial protest vote against both establishment parties for their alleged corruption and perennial kow-towing to the haredi factions.

Sharon managed to win back some of that support in the waning days of the campaign, especially as many undecided voters fell his way. But the political landscape looks surprisingly rough for someone just crowned the victor - and only the second sitting Israeli prime minister ever returned to office.

Taking him at his word, Sharon's preference is for "all the Zionist parties" to join the "widest possible government." That would include Likud, Labor, Shinui, and the smaller right-wing factions, including a National Union less able to demand its way.

But with Mitzna adamant about rebuilding his tattered party in the Opposition, analysts say Sharon may well use the full 42-day time period allotted to form a coalition in order to allow more pressure to build on Labor to join the government. A war in Iraq could drive them into Sharon's lap… but not likely.

That leaves two other basic options, which would come down to choosing between the staunchly secular Shinui and the strictly religious Shas and UTJ, with both blocs controlling about 15-16 mandates.

Sharon does not relish having to make this decision, which could rip at the delicate fabric of Israeli society at a sensitive time. "We must not allow Israel to be divided from within, consumed by unfounded hatred," he pleaded last night. "Not during war. Not during crisis. Not now."

It is one thing for Sharon to install Israel's first-ever haredi-less government, which would finally begin to wean the ultra-Orthodox from inequitable state subsidies and powers - the source of so much public resentment. Sharon may be reluctant to break Likud's traditional alliance with the ultra-religious camp, but could see many benefits in it on this one occasion.

But if Shinui insists on the coalition aggressively altering the religious status quo, that is another story. The question, for instance, of drafting yeshiva students into an army that does not want them has been exhaustively examined over recent years, and a compromise reached that few like but even fewer wish to reopen. In addition, it would take time to equip secluded Torah students for a job market that already suffers from record unemployment.

Shinui leader Tommy Lapid may have to suffice for now with a symbolic victory that simply leaves the black-hatted politicians fending for once on the outside. Otherwise, Sharon is stuck with a narrow right-wing coalition whose far-right partners are vowing to block all diplomatic initiatives that even hint of Palestinian independence.

Meanwhile, at a time when Labor and the left should be seriously re-examining their path to ruin, expect them rather to use every trick in the book to undo the results of yesterday's historic elections.

David Parsons is the editor of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) News Service.