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| CHANGED LANDSCAPE | |
 May 18, 1999 
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 LAURIE
NEFF: Israel's Prime Minister-elect, Ehud Barak, celebrated his stunning
victory in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, scene of the assassination three
years ago of his political mentor, the former Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin.
With 56 percent of the vote, Barak handed Benjamin Netanyahu a stinging
defeat and immediately vowed to end the divisiveness of his predecessor's
era.
REUVEN HAZAN, Hebrew University: When it comes to Israeli society, we're fracturing in every possible direction. We have a fragmented, fractionalized, polarized, sectorialized parliament, very heterogeneous, very difficult to keep together. |
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| How the Palestinians view Barak's victory. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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EHUD BARAK: (speaking through interpreter) We will reach peace not from weakness, but from strength and a feeling of security; not a peace which come at the expense of security, but peace that will bring security.
GHASSEM AL-KHALIB, Political Analyst: Israeli Labor-led governments and Israeli Likud-led governments were equally active in settlement expansion. Actually, the Israeli settlement policy started under Labor governments. LAURIE NEFF: Today the prime minister-elect went to one of Judaism's most sacred places, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where he called on Israelis to unite the way they did when they captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 War. But in putting together a government, Barak must deal with a diverse and divided society and he must figure out how to deal with those he leaves out of that government. |
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EHUD
BARAK: (speaking through interpreter) I pledge that only the welfare
of the state will guide me. Those issues that bind us one to another
are greater than those that divide us. The citizens of Israel want unity.
This objective will not be reached overnight, but I want to tell you
that this unity begins here and now.
LAURIE
NEFF: To many Israeli voters, Barak's reputation as the most decorated
soldier in his nation's history dispelled any doubts about his attitude
towards security issues. And in campaign appearances, he was more successful
than Netanyahu in focusing on domestic issues, like religious and ethnic
tensions and the state of Israel's recession-plagued economy. While
Ehud Barak won a stunning personal victory, he still faces the task
of assembling a coalition government. His Labor Party won just 27 seats
in the Knesset and now must find allies among a record number of parties
that will be represented. Some of the 120 seats in the parliament were
won by very disparate parties. The ultra-orthodox religious party Shas
won 17 seats up from ten. The secular anti-orthodox Shinui party won
six seats. And Netanyahu's Likud party was reduced to 19 seats.
LAURIE
NEFF: Barak seems to have brought Israelis together on the question
of how to deal with Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians and with other
Arab neighbors. 
LAURIE
NEFF: Barak promised to revive the peace process with the Palestinians,
which had been frozen under Netanyahu. But Barak's terms include keeping
Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, a unified Jerusalem under
Israeli control, no return to Israel's 1967 borders, and an emphasis
on separating Jews and Arabs. Barak also promised to reopen a dialogue
with Syria and to bring Israeli soldiers home from South Lebanon within
one year. Palestinians are not sorry to see Netanyahu go, but say that
in their experience there has not been much difference between Labor
and Likud, especially on settlements.