Israeli Vote Vital But Not Inspiring : Election: The country’s choice of a prime minister may decide its territorial goals. But the campaign has been compared to watching fruit rot.

Israel’s lethargic election campaign is shuffling to a close with two distinct visions of Israel’s immediate future--and its size--at stake.

Yitzhak Rabin of the opposition Labor Party appears to hold the edge over incumbent Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and the right-wing Likud Party, observers say, but not by enough to ensure dovish rule in Israel for the next four years.

Rabin expresses eagerness to put an end to conflict with Israel’s Arab neighbors and, once and for all, to set Israel’s borders to exclude the bulk of the rebellious Palestinian population.

Shamir lays claim to territorial boundaries that stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, whether the Palestinians accept Israeli rule or not.

“This is an election that could finally set the limits of Israel’s national aspirations,” said Yaron Ezrahi, a political theorist at Hebrew University.

In the vote Tuesday for 120 seats in the Knesset, the nation’s Parliament, Labor is given a significant chance to edge Likud for the first time in 15 years. Neither party can expect to win more than a plurality of seats. A governing majority will depend on a number of smaller parties that are vying for the favor of Israel’s fractured electorate. The closer the race between Rabin and Likud, the tougher the bargaining will be to form a new ruling coalition.

“For the past decade, there has essentially been a tie in Israeli politics. In this race, it may be as hard as ever to break it,” predicted political scientist Avishai Margalit. “The stakes are high, and that makes it more difficult. Rabin wants to bargain with the Palestinians, and Shamir does not.”

No matter who wins, this election has produced a shift in the issues by which the major parties try to lure voters. Both Labor and Likud campaigned vigorously in favor of Middle East peace talks. In the past, the notion of such talks was a topic of major controversy; to appeal to the center of the Israeli electorate now is to support negotiations.

Labor banked on Rabin, 70, to attract both hawks and doves because, although he favors speeding up the talks, he is tough on Arab unrest and wary of the military power of Israel’s adversaries. Labor needs a good showing by another party on the left as well as by Israel’s Arab parties to produce enough seats to keep Shamir from being able to form another government in coalition with far-right and religious parties. A close vote may throw Rabin and Shamir into each other’s arms and into a “unity government.”

Shamir, 76, declared himself the champion of Middle East peace talks, which began last fall. On occasion during the campaign, he sounded more like a Labor politician of the past than the mistrustful and security-conscious leader whom he is widely recognized to be.

Likud has been hampered by the country’s economic distress and the unenthusiastic participation in the campaign by some of its top figures, notably Defense Minister Moshe Arens and Foreign Minister David Levy. Both, along with Housing Minister and settlement builder Ariel Sharon, are vying to succeed the aging Shamir as Likud’s leader. Shamir’s unwillingness to designate an heir has left them fighting among themselves.

Public opinion polls are notoriously unreliable here because they ignore the votes of many religious Jews who lack telephones and because they totally ignore Israel’s Arab citizens. In addition, polls often reflect results desired by the party that pays for them. In any case, polls agree that Rabin is ahead but disagree about whether he can muster enough strength to do without Likud in a coalition government.

The closing days of campaigning have focused on interests viewed as important to voters still wavering. The parties used promises of prosperity to vie for the attention of undecided middle-class voters and of Russian immigrants going to the polls for the first time. The two groups are expected to make the difference between Rabin and Shamir.

To some observers, emphasis on everyday concerns was a welcome turn away from the Palestinian issue and toward resolution of long-ignored problems of economic reform and growth. “The pols of both parties have used the debate over the future of the (West Bank and Gaza Strip) like Novocain, to keep us quiet while they pull our teeth,” columnist Zeev Chafets remarked.

Likud has been active in using the tools of incumbency to benefit its campaign. Shamir offered thousands of empty apartments for rent at cut-rate prices. Overbuilding that produced such apartments resulted from efforts to erect housing for Russian immigrants in towns where the immigrants didn’t want to live.

Some of the rentals are available in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

The government also withheld a scheduled fuel price increase to keep down the May figures for inflation. The government is still trying to grant a tax break to small businesses but has been blocked by a dissident finance minister.

Such pre-election gambits were opposed by government economic advisers in the Central Bank as potentially inflationary.

Tax breaks, for instance, would worsen the government budget deficit because no alternate form of revenue is envisaged.

Shamir kept up the pace of settlement building in the occupied lands, an indication that he is unrepentant in the face of President Bush’s insistent opposition to that program. Two new settlements were inaugurated recently; new roads are being built to link remote communities, and housing, especially near Israel’s old 1967 border, is going up rapidly. Critics of the program say that 4,000 homes have been built since the first of the year.

Labor has televised advertisements that emphasize Israel’s loss of foreign aid due to Washington’s opposition to the settlement program.

Despite the stakes, there is little evidence of rising enthusiasm among the voters. Both major parties canceled traditional, climactic campaign rallies lest they fizzle. Shamir’s evasive style and Rabin’s undemonstrative personality contrast mightily with the flamboyance of past campaigners such as Menachem Begin of Likud and Labor’s wily Shimon Peres.

The leading candidates are familiar enough to voters that just about everyone knows their positions by heart. One columnist compared Israel’s tolerance of the leading candidates to the experience of watching fruit rot.

So far, no dramatic foreign incident has exploded that might sway voters. Low-intensity fighting with Shiite Muslim guerrillas in southern Lebanon barely causes a ripple despite occasional Israeli casualties and sharp retaliations by Israeli warplanes. Fighting in Lebanon is not necessarily an issue that causes Israelis to rally round the flag. Many still harbor bitter memories of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the subsequent three-year occupation of parts of that country. It is not an issue that Likud, which took Israel into the war, cares to boast much about.

A recent spasm of intercommunity violence between Israelis and Palestinians may have benefited Likud somewhat, and voters might also be driven to extreme anti-Arab parties in the event of Arab attacks on Jews.

The United States has kept a watchful silence. Washington has made no secret of its preference for Rabin; in 1989 when he was defense minister, the Bush Administration hoped he could pull Shamir into talks with the Palestinians. A plan for Palestinian elections once authored by Rabin and pushed by Secretary of State James A. Baker III came to nothing when Shamir backed out.

Since Israel’s election campaign began, U.S. Administration officials have declined to comment openly on the vote, although Bush has hinted he will try to improve Washington-Jerusalem ties, at present correct but strained, when a new government is installed. Reconciliation would be easier with Rabin, who has pledged to curtail Israel’s settlement program in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

That program drove a wedge between Shamir and Bush, who views the occupied lands as a bargaining chip to be used by Israel to gain peace with the Arabs. The Palestinians express--in private--their hope for a Rabin win. Last week, top local Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini did verbal back flips trying to avoid endorsing the Labor candidate lest he provoke an anti-Rabin backlash. “With Labor, there would perhaps be more room for maneuver,” he murmured when pressed for his choice.