Good News for Mideast

Israeli voters have decisively repudiated the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, electing Labor Party leader Ehud Barak to a four-year term.

Israel’s electoral campaigns are always intensely bitter and personal, but this year’s proved to be extraordinarily divisive. It saw an explosion of long-throbbing ethnic, religious and ideological hostilities, and the anger brought to the surface by the campaign will not end with the vote counting. In his victory statement Barak said Israelis want “unity and change and new hope.” They will get change, and in Israel there is always hope. But achieving unity promises to be far more demanding.

The foreign policy issues that draw most world attention to Israel played only a small part in this election. To be sure, Netanyahu and his more extreme supporters accused Barak of being ready to capitulate to maximum Palestinian demands and even share sovereignty over Jerusalem. But most voters were not taken in. While opinions strongly differ on the details of a peace settlement with the Palestinians, including how much of the West Bank should be ceded to their control, a powerful consensus exists in favor of making peace based on the Oslo accords.

Barak has made clear he is prepared to move ahead with serious negotiations, after three years of Netanyahu’s stonewalling. If the Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat proves to be a serious negotiating partner, ready to make the responsible compromises on which a final agreement depends, rapid progress can be made.

It was domestic issues that dominated in the campaign. Some, like the faltering economy, cut across the lines of party concerns. Others were narrower but more intense. Never before has the conflict between the ultra-Orthodox minority and the secular majority been so rawly exposed, and never before has the disproportionate national power wielded by the ultra-Orthodox, whose support has so often been vital in building governing coalitions, been so directly challenged. Among the boldest challengers were leaders of Israel’s 800,000-strong community of recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Representing 14% of the electorate, the Russians, as they are collectively known, came into their own in this campaign.

Barak should have no trouble putting together a coalition whose members can agree on the basic outline of an active negotiating policy with the Palestinians. The former army chief of staff and relative newcomer to politics is a pragmatist who, unlike the man he replaces, is inclined to seek common ground among disparate groups. Like the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he does not have to prove his fidelity to Israel’s security interests. His election is good news for Israel and good news for all in the Middle East who are committed to the peace process.