For 2 Young Voters: Same Dream, Different Leaders

“I think Peres!” “I think Bibi!”

Friends since high school, the two women lying on the crowded beach near downtown Tel Aviv on the religious holiday of Shavuot exchanged looks that said each thought the other was crazy.

One was planning to vote for Prime Minister Shimon Peres in elections here Wednesday, while the other was giving her support to Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, the young, telegenic candidate of the conservative Likud Party.

Both women are children of Jewish immigrants from other Middle Eastern countries and grew up in right-wing households. Both served in the army and are embarking on careers. Both were shocked by the assassination last year of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the hands of a Jewish student. And both were terrified by the recent wave of suicide bombings by Islamic fundamentalists that killed more than 60 people in Israel.

Most important, both have the same dream for their nation: a future of peace with security.

But like the rest of Israeli society, the two are divided about how to get there. The differences they voiced on the beach Friday mirror those in many households as 3.9 million voters prepare to decide who will lead Israel through the crucial next phase of peace discussions with the Palestinians.

Peres supporter Lillian Weizman, 21, who is applying to join the police, said that the events that have rocked Israel in the past year made her conclude that there is no other way but to continue the peace process begun by Rabin and Peres.

Miri Digmi, also 21, employed by a mobile telephone company, said those same events made her favor Netanyahu’s tough stance. She thinks Peres would give away land and make too many concessions, leaving her and her family more vulnerable than they are now.

“I choose Bibi because I know that if he is elected prime minister, we will be secure in our country,” she said. “If they try to do anything against us, he will put a stop to it.”

“I think Peres is strong enough,” countered Weizman. “Terrorism will continue even if Bibi is elected.”

The key, Weizman said, is compromise. “If we want peace, we must pay some price--like the Golan,” she said, referring to the Golan Heights that Israel took from Syria in 1967 and might have to surrender in any future peace accord with Syria. “We lost many soldiers in many wars, but we don’t have any choice. We must have peace.”

Weizman went on to say that she was on a bus recently when she noticed a man carrying a bag and acting “very suspiciously.” She was seized by panic, imagining he had a bomb.

She inched over to the driver and whispered her fears, asking him to at least stop so she could get out. The driver laughed and said the “bomber” was only a tourist. That experience was a turning point, she said.

“I felt so insecure in my own country. If I want to feel secure, we must pay a price for peace.”

Digmi criticized Peres’ plans to pull Israeli troops from the West Bank city of Hebron, where they are protecting a community of Jewish settlers surrounded by Arabs. “You start with Hebron and it will end up with Tel Aviv,” she said. “Why not give them my house?”

“He won’t give it,” Weizman said of the prime minister. “I trust him because he is a Jew.”

“I want to say something,” said Digmi. “I just want one thing--for the terrorism to stop.”