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Friday April 30, 1999

S.F. panel tackles economic, peace issues in Israeli race

MARTIN KASSMAN
Bulletin Correspondent

Departing from other panelists at an Israeli election discussion last week, Rabbi Doug Kahn, executive director of San Francisco's Jewish Community Relations Council, said the main issue is the economy.

"What may decide the vote are not the issues of peace, not the issues of security and not the issues of religion, but a theme that we've seen raise its head in American elections time and time again. And that's the economy," he said, addressing some 30 people on Thursday of last week at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.

However, the other three panelists at the event sponsored by the Raoul Wallenberg Jewish Democratic Club said the race for prime minister will hinge on the candidates' personalities and on which is most likely to achieve a positive outcome in the peace process.

In addition to incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud, the major contenders are Labor's Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Mordechai of the moderate Center Party.

Kahn said that some voters who formerly supported Netanyahu might be "more worried about their own economic situation and Israel's hurting economy" than about whether Labor would cede too much to the Palestinians in the peace process.

However, he was alone in his view about the importance of economic issues.

"This has never been a front-burner issue in the mind of the Israeli electorate," and it won't be this time, said Ori Nir, S.F.-based correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

John Rothmann, a KGO Radio talk-show host and former presidential adviser on Middle East affairs, agreed. "Economics will play no role in this campaign," said Rothmann, who was also founding president of the Wallenberg Club.

Three of the four panelists remarked that the leading candidates in the May 17 race for prime minister have not articulated major policy differences.

"There is not a lot of difference, ideologically, between these three candidates," Rothmann said.

Nitzan Aviv, director of the Israel Center of the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay, observed that the candidates are saying the same things but in different terms. "Netanyahu says, 'I want to keep on safe borders, and then to make peace,' and Barak will say, 'I want to make peace, but to keep on safe borders.'"

Nir added, "Most of the public debate in Israel proper during this campaign has focused on character issues, mainly the character of...Netanyahu, and his performance."

Expanding on that idea after the discussion, Nir said that opponents have accused Netanyahu of being untrustworthy and of lying about, among other things, his commitment to the peace process.

Aviv, who is also an Israeli citizen, predicted that Israelis will base their choice for a national leader on what kind of peacemaking they want, since it appears that Israel will be forced, one way or another, to come to terms with the Palestinians during the next prime minister's term.

He acknowledged that Israel is in a bad economic situation, with 12 percent unemployment. But he agreed with Nir and Rothmann that economics won't play a role in the May election.

Instead, Aviv expressed concern about the campaign's tone.

"I predict a very violent election, and it's already started," he said, citing an incident in which Likud and Center Party supporters physically clashed at a Mordechai appearance.

Aviv also criticized "sarcastic" Labor stickers and slogans as inappropriate. In a later interview, he cited as an example an admonition on Barak's Web site: "Do not forget to throw out the trash on the 17th."

"I think that at the end, [the campaign's tone] will create a disaster," he said, asserting that it could "very easily" lead to a second assassination of an Israeli prime minister.

The panel discussion itself was not without a flash of anger. Rothmann pounded the table as he criticized Barak sharply for "strategic ineptitude" in, among other things, alienating members of religious parties and relying solely on secular voters. "Barak wins this thing, it's a miracle," Rothmann exclaimed.

Kahn agreed that Barak has largely "written off" the religious vote, which he said is about 20 percent of the electorate -- and which ensured Netanyahu's 1996 victory over Labor's Shimon Peres. Ninety-five percent of the religious voters selected Netanyahu in 1996.

Three years later, Barak is in a virtual dead heat with Netanyahu in pre-election polls, Nir reported. He said it is almost certain that no candidate will muster a majority on May 17. That means the two top winners, probably Barak and Netanyahu, will face each other in a runoff two weeks later.

The Center Party's Mordechai, formerly of Likud, has about half as much support in the polls as either Barak or Netanyahu, according to Nir's figures. Ze'ev "Benny" Begin -- who broke with Likud and formed the right-wing Herut Party -- and Balad (Arab) candidate Azmi Bishara round out the field of five candidates.

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