Israelis Boost Parties That Seek Pullout

Israelis set their country on course toward relinquishing dozens of settlements in the West Bank on Tuesday, voting heavily for parties that favor further withdrawals from Palestinian territories.

The centrist Kadima party founded last year by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will have the largest number of parliamentary seats, 28, according to nearly complete returns. The showing was weaker than preelection surveys had forecast, but still enough to make Sharon’s deputy, Ehud Olmert, the likely next prime minister.

“We have to create a new chapter in the life of the state of Israel,” Olmert told cheering, flag-waving supporters at his party headquarters early today. “In the coming period, we will move to set the final borders of the state of Israel, a Jewish state with a Jewish majority,” he said.

He paid emotional tribute to Sharon, felled by a devastating stroke in January, calling him “even now, our prime minister.”

In stronger-than-expected second place was the left-leaning Labor Party, with which Olmert is likely to seek to form a coalition.

The night’s most stunning defeat was dealt to the once-dominant Likud Party, whose leadership was taken up by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Sharon abandoned it last fall. With more than 99% of precincts counted, the returns showed Likud falling to fifth place.

The elections were characterized by ennui and indecisiveness -- producing the lowest voter turnout ever: 63.2%. Yet the vote, the fifth national ballot in a decade, was dominated by issues that could literally shape the country.

In the run-up to the elections, Olmert made explicit the withdrawal plans that Sharon had kept vague. As a result, the balloting became, in effect, a test of his policy of unilaterally setting the nation’s borders -- the clearest referendum in the nation’s history on whether Israelis are willing to let go of land that many Jews regard as part of their biblical inheritance.

“Olmert did what Sharon would not have done on the eve of elections: He told the voters what he intends to do if they elect him,” the country’s premier political commentator, Nahum Barnea, wrote in Tuesday’s Yediot Aharonot daily. “He turned these elections into a referendum on the future of Judea and Samaria” -- the biblical designation for the West Bank.

Many observers considered the balloting a watershed in that voters chose a path yet untried by either Likud or Labor, which for decades have traded power in successive Israeli governments.

The vote was “no longer a competition between the traditional left and the traditional right,” said Shlomo Avineri, a professor at Hebrew University. “Each offered their own solutions for the conflict with the Palestinians, and each of their strategies have so far failed.”

If carried through, Olmert’s plan would “converge” Israel’s West Bank settlements into a few large blocks lying relatively close to the 1967 armistice lines. That would uproot dozens of settlements -- a process that could be far more violent and contentious than Israel’s exit from the Gaza Strip last summer, which the septuagenarian Sharon, the onetime godfather of the settlements, pushed through as his last major political act.

Addressing the Palestinians, Olmert said in his victory speech, “We are prepared to compromise, give up parts of our beloved land of Israel, remove, painfully, Jews who live there, to allow you the conditions to achieve your hopes and to live in a state in peace and quiet.”

He said he hoped to accomplish that goal through negotiations, but would act unilaterally if necessary. That idea is strongly opposed by the Palestinians, who argue that boundaries can be set only by negotiation. Olmert has said he will not negotiate with a Palestinian government controlled by the Islamist group Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

As Israelis voted Tuesday, the Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament approved Hamas’ proposed Cabinet, which is largely composed of figures from the militant group. Some of the Hamas lawmakers cried out “God is great!” when the 71-36 vote was tallied.

The new Palestinian government could be sworn in as early as today, setting the stage for confrontation not only with Israel but also with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas has urged Hamas to renounce its stated aim of Israel’s destruction.

In Israel’s entire history, no party has ever won an outright majority in the Knesset. This vote was no different, so the 60-year-old Olmert, who was Sharon’s longtime confidant and deputy, must turn to the complex task of building a stable governing coalition -- a difficult undertaking in Israel’s traditionally fractious and combative political environment.

Labor’s showing would give it 20 seats in the 120-member Knesset, increasing its leverage in coalition talks that could last several weeks. The party’s neophyte leader, Amir Peretz, waged an energetic campaign calling for more social benefits for the poor and elderly and peace talks with the Palestinians.

By contrast, Netanyahu -- whose excellent English and command of television sound bites made him among the Israeli leaders best known in America -- could be at the end of his political career.

In a defiant speech at Likud headquarters, Netanyahu offered no sign of stepping aside. “We will see better days,” he told supporters, some of them teary-eyed.

Likud also appeared to have lost votes to another right-wing party, led by a onetime Netanyahu protege, Avigdor Lieberman. Lieberman, an immigrant from Moldova who had strong appeal to fellow immigrants from the former Soviet Union, advocates swapping Arab-populated areas inside Israel for Jewish-settled areas of the West Bank. His party, Yisrael Beiteinu, would get 12 seats and Likud 11, according to the returns.

Significantly, the combined strength of Likud and other rightist parties leaves them far short of a “blocking majority” in the Knesset.

“The right wing lost big time,” said Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at Hebrew University.

Although the bulk of the attention was focused on the big parties, 31 political groupings contested the vote. In the Israeli parliamentary system, small parties can wield outsized clout in coalition-building.

One of the elections’ big surprises was the Pensioners Party, which appeared to be winning at least half a dozen seats after what was in effect a single-issue campaign backing increased benefits for retirees. The party swiftly declared support for withdrawals from the West Bank, making it a potential coalition partner.

Olmert is considered likeliest to ally himself with Labor, the leftist Meretz and perhaps the religious party Shas, whose constituency is mainly Orthodox Jews of Middle Eastern descent. Shas was in third place with 13 seats, according to the returns. Olmert has already said that any partners in governance must hew to his disengagement plans.

But the unilateralism envisioned by Olmert could be moderated by Labor, which advocates a negotiated accord leading to Palestinian statehood.

Election-day security was rigorous even by Israeli standards. About 25,000 police, paramilitary border police and soldiers were on alert.

When Olmert went to his neighborhood polling station to vote, even officials overseeing the balloting were frisked by his security detail.

Political analysts here said that although the new leaderapparent lacks Sharon’s prestige and charisma, the success of Kadima pointed to a national consensus that did not hinge on his personal appeal.

“The voters in this election have already given legitimacy to the idea of final borders and the division of this land, and are now seeking to find someone effective enough to carry it out,” said Orit Galili, a political science professor at Tel Aviv University.

Special correspondent Vita Bekker in Tel Aviv and Batsheva Sobelman of The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.