Israel Ousts Likud; Rabin Can Form a New Government : Election: The dramatic gains for the Labor Party could accelerate Middle East peace talks. A center-left coalition is expected, leaving out Shamir’s party.

Yitzhak Rabin and the dovish Labor Party scored dramatic gains in Israel’s national election Tuesday with a plurality that apparently gives Rabin, a proponent of speedier Middle East peace talks, a large enough base to form a government without the archrival Likud Party, headed by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

With 85% of the vote counted, returns showed Labor on the way to winning 46 seats in the 120-member Knesset, or parliament. Meretz, a pro-peace party, took 12, and two pro-Arab leftist parties gained 2 seats each, providing Rabin with a bloc that can stop Likud, even in alliance with far-right and religious parties, from returning to power.

The early results gave Likud 33 seats, down from the 40 it held in the outgoing Knesset.

With a so-called blocking majority of 62 seats, a Rabin cabinet could withstand a vote of confidence in the Knesset. But he will undoubtedly try to gain a majority made up of Jewish parties in parliament by enticing at least one other party, probably from the religious bloc, to his side.

A televised exit poll gave Labor 47 seats, with 13 going to Meretz, Labor’s presumptive coalition partner, and four to the two minor pro-Arab parties, largely representing Arab citizens of Israel--all told, a 64-seat blocking majority.

A center-left coalition under Rabin, who would return to the prime minister’s job he left in disgrace in 1977, can be expected to try to accelerate Middle East peace talks by quickly offering Palestinians elections and self-rule.

“The first stage has begun,” Rabin told jubilant supporters at a hotel headquarters in Tel Aviv. In response, the crowd shouted, “Rabin, king of Israel!”

“I see myself and Labor carrying great responsibilty to the nation,” Rabin continued. “We will go according to our policies. The nation knows what we plan to do. We plan to realize the dreams we set before the nation.”

If the results hold, Rabin will have a strong hand in bargaining for coalition partners. It is clear that Labor has ended a 15-year drought during which the best it could do was share power with Likud, usually in a junior role. Labor dominated the first 30 years of the country’s political life but was unseated by Likud in 1977 and held only 38 seats in the outgoing Knesset.

Tuesday’s results indicate a halt to the rightward drift of Israeli politics. Likud has not sat in opposition since its 1977 rise to power.

“This is virtually an upheaval, maybe a revolution,” said Ehud Sprinzak, a political scientist and expert on right-wing politics.

In addressing his supporters, the 70-year-old Rabin kept his coalition plans to himself but pledged that he would choose partners who “will allow us to execute our policies.”

“Don’t worry,” he continued in a hoarse voice. “All the forces in the nation that agree with our way of seeking peace will be included. The nation knows what we plan to do.”

Rabin is willing to divest Israel of land heavily populated by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. He also indicated that he would curb construction of settlements in the occupied territories, an issue pressed by the Bush Administration. If Rabin delivers, Israel’s strained relations with Washington are likely to heal quickly.

The election appeared to spell the end of Shamir’s political career--unless Labor takes Likud into a coalition. For the past two years, Shamir, 76, doggedly pursued the settlement program at the expense of new U.S. foreign aid in the form of support for development loans. President Bush refused to grant loan guarantees unless Shamir froze settlement construction.

In a speech to downcast supporters early today, Shamir promised to fight on. “Sometimes the righteous fall, but in the end all the good things we did will live in Israel’s memory. We have achieved things. Never say we give up. No one will break us,” he said, waving his fist wildly.

Shamir warned against taking to the streets to dispute the election results. “We will see what will happen without excess anger. We will watch for danger, and we will not abuse the people who want to hurt the things that are holy to us, but to continue on our guard,” he said to a flurry of cheers.

He later told a radio interviewer, “We are ready for opposition.”

Ariel Sharon, the housing minister and architect of the settlement program, was defiant even as he conceded defeat. “I learned something through the years,” the former general said. “It’s easy in times of winning. But in hard times, we must straighten the ranks. This is a democracy, and we must respect what has been chosen. If it is necessary, we will act even in opposition. If the left makes a government, it won’t be easy, but we will win.”

In pre-election predictions, Likud officials had conceded an edge to Rabin but thought the margin could be kept to within fewer than a half-dozen seats. “It’s a new ballgame,” said government spokesman Yossi Olmert after most of the results were in. “It’s clear Israel is moving in a new direction.”

Far-right parties experienced mixed fortunes. One anti-Arab right-wing party, Tehiya, which held three seats in the outgoing parliament, was eliminated altogether because it failed to gain the needed threshold of votes to win a seat. One rightist party, Tsomet, which campaigned for clean government as well as against peace talks, and another, Moledet, which favors removal of Palestinians to other countries, gained seats.

“Rabin’s plans could lead to the end of Israel,” warned Tsomet leader Rafael Eitan, a former general, in the kind of apocalyptic comment that was common among the rightists Tuesday night.

Three religious parties apparently dropped below the total of 18 they had controled in the outgoing parliament. A spokesman for one party, Shas, which represents Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin, indicated that it would reconsider its previous opposition to joining a Labor government. Religious parties depend on government welfare to support their networks of schools and housing projects, and their communities risk impoverishment if they stay out of government.

On the left, Meretz, an alliance of three parties, increased its parliamentary holding from 10 to at least 12. The showing brought calls for Rabin to quickly choose the grouping as a coalition partner. “We will not sit with Likud,” said Yair Tsaban, a Meretz Knesset member.

The two parties largely representing Arab Israeli citizens are essentially banned from joining a government because their platforms promote an independent state for Palestinians. However, each fiercely opposes Shamir and Likud.

Some observers insisted that Rabin would prefer to invite Likud into a power-sharing arrangement rather than head a largely dovish coalition with Meretz. But at least two factors seem to preclude the option. The margin of Labor’s victory makes it unlikely that Rabin would want to save Likud, which is expected to become embroiled in a power struggle over a successor to Shamir as party leader. In addition, the bulk of the Labor Party itself is keen on speeding up the peace talks and regards Likud as a drag on progress. “This will be a government of peace. Anyone who backs it can join, but with our rules,” said Avraham Burg, a young Labor politician.

Analysts attributed some of Labor’s showing to the votes of new Russian immigrants who have been dismayed by a lack of jobs and convenient housing in Israel. At the Neve Yaacov school at the northern edge of Jerusalem, signs of trouble for Likud were evident early in the day. At the schoolhouse polling station, a group of new Russian immigrant voters, old men with newspapers under their arms and old ladies with thick-soled shoes, spoke glowingly of Labor. “We all voted Labor; Labor is going to win,” said a woman who gave only her last name, Marinov.

None of three parties composed of new immigrants won enough votes to enter Parliament.

Trouble in Likud’s ranks hampered the ruling party. Potential sucessors to Shamir fought among themselves, putting off longtime voters. At Neve Yaacov, veteran Likud supporter Shlomo Granit fingered a gold chain around his neck and criticized his own party’s campaign. “There was no elan in the Likud. There is a lot of disillusion. Likud should have explained well what will happen if people vote Labor,” he said.

“We were too busy criticizing each other.”

Rabin was chosen his party’s candidate at a first-ever primary election in January. His supporters considered him more electable than his chief rival, Shimon Peres, and it appears that Rabin reversed Labor’s image as a party that would surrender Israel’s security in a search for peace with Arabs.

He overcame attacks on his character, including insinuations that he is a drunk and that he suffered a nervous breakdown as chief of staff on the eve of the 1967 Middle East War. The scandal that drove him from power in the mid-1970s, involving an illegal foreign bank account, was all but forgotten.

A former general who, as defense minister in a coalition with Shamir, ordered soldiers to beat Palestinian demonstrators during the Arab uprising, Rabin conveyed a tough-on-Arabs image. The idea that Israel is threatened from Arab armies figured hardly at all in the campaign. There is a general feeling that Israel is safer from invasion than at almost any time in its history.

Rather, it was the issue of day-to-day, individual safety that concerned Israelis, and here it was Rabin who seemed to present an answer.

He promised to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in such a way that the Palestinians would essentially be separated from Israeli society. After a Palestinian man knifed an Israeli teen-age girl in the coastal town of Bat Yam, Rabin pledged that under self-rule, “Palestinians from Gaza would stay in Gaza and not work in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Bat Yam.”

Shamir, on the other hand, insisted that Israel will continue to rule the West Bank and Gaza and that the Palestinians “must learn” to accept it. After the stabbing, his government closed off the Gaza Strip for several days, but then reopened it to let Palestinian day laborers pass into Israel lest he be seen to be putting into effect de facto separation.

Shamir persisted in his view that Israel must keep all the West Bank and Gaza. He warned darkly of foreign forces that would gang up on Israel to snatch the land away. “In the next year or two, a massive effort will be made by the whole world to decide the fate of the Land of Israel,” he said on election eve.

The results, and the apparent shift of traditional Likud voters to Labor, marks a break in the tribal pattern of voting that has characterized Israeli politics for decades. Israelis of Near Eastern and North African descent--the so-called Oriental Jews--had automatically favored Likud, having felt abused by Labor’s socialist policies when they first arrived in Israel during the 1950s. For the first time, Oriental Jewish neighborhoods could be seen sporting Labor Party propaganda. Unemployment and inflation may have eroded Likud’s base of support.

“Labor is no longer in power and cannot be blamed for the previous generations of Labor leaders. Rabin’s picture can be seen outside homes in South Tel Aviv and in development towns,” noted columnist Yoel Marcus.

New rules that raised the threshhold of winning the first seat in the Knesset from 1% to 1.5% of the total votes cast reduced the number of parties that will hold seats from 15 to 10. Twnety-five parties took part in the election.