KEY POINTS:
JERUSALEM - Dried-fruit seller Itzik Shimon had no doubts about Avigdor Lieberman or his flagship policy of demanding a loyalty test for Israeli Arabs as a precondition of full citizenship.
"I'll vote for him because Lieberman has got it black and white. You're with me, you want to live with me, fine; you don't, then I will slot you. What we did in Gaza was to help the whole world. In 10 years, Europe will be completely Muslim. But we should have gone on [in Gaza] till the end.
"Now they want a cease-fire and in six months they will be back with their missiles and we'll have to fight again. When you're weak with the Arabs, they see it as a way to take advantage of you." Shimon, 48, though, is contemptuous of what he sees as vagueness in the Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu - "Bibi flows like a river".
He speaks with the authentic voice of Mahane Yehuda, Jerusalem's busy Jewish market, long a bastion of the Israeli working class right. Yet, counter-intuitively, given that the polls all predict a national rightward shift in today's election - voting began last night - this was by no means the universal view in the souk yesterday.
Greengrocer Eli Binyamin, 56, will vote for Tzipi Livni today. "I'm happy having a woman prime minister - she's clean, she comes from the centre party and she will go for peace and give back land."
Binyamin acknowledged that a majority in what has been a Likud stronghold, from Menachem Begin's 1977 victory until Ariel Sharon's breakaway formation of Kadima in 2005, would still vote for the right. "I don't argue with them because it can turn ugly and the next day you have to work with them."
And he said he understood the feeling among many of his colleagues that "[Israeli] Arabs get rights without doing their duties to the Government like serving in the Army". But he adds:"We need peace with the Arabs; we want to be quiet like most of the countries in the world."
More conventionally perhaps, Avraham Levy, 58, a member of the Likud central committee whose fruit stall is adorned with a portrait of Begin, will vote Netanyahu and said that while "all Zionist parties will be welcome" his preferred coalition would be one with Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu, the right-wing, ultra-orthodox party Shas, and Labour "because people like a little of the left".
Rice and pulse vegetable stallholder Roni Yas, 52, was also leaning towards Likud "because we need peace but to get peace you need a strong leader. We need a peace agreement from strength, not one which will give them weapons they can shoot at us with the next day. Bibi showed strong leadership when he ran the economy [as Finance Minister]".
Yas has little time for Lieberman, whom he accuses of running his party like a "dictator". "When people put their heads on the pillow tonight they'll think it's about peace and war and they won't vote Lieberman."
For Rachel Shmoul, 50, who designs and sells clothes in her small shop in the market, Lieberman is also "too right wing". Instead she, too, will be voting Livni, hoping for peace with the Palestinians but not starry-eyed about the prospects in the near future. Did she therefore favour giving up the Golan Heights for a treaty with Syria, which some analysts think is a likelier prospect for the next government? "That's a very tough question. It's difficult, more difficult than the West Bank."
Kosher delicatessen owner Moshe Shachar, 60, who also has a photograph of Begin -with Shachar's father - on the wall is voting Lieberman, having broken with then Likud leader Ariel Sharon over his "mistake" in withdrawing settlers and troops from Gaza in 2005.
Though religious himself, he is unruffled by Lieberman's fierce secularism and backing for civil marriages, pointing out that some other members of the Lieberman family are religious. "Politicians and the media distort what he says. He is not saying Arabs out . He is saying they are welcome to stay [as citizens] if they are faithful to the country and not against the government and the country. But where were [Arab Knesset member] Ahmad Tibi and all those idiots when Hamas were suicide bombing us? Why did they stay quiet? And now they are saying stop killing them [in Gaza]."
- INDEPENDENT
THE KEY ISSUES
BORDERS
Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima Party wants to determine Israel's final borders based on the United States-backed road map peace plan, which calls for a negotiated peace deal with the Palestinians and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Kadima wants to retain major Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem.
The centre-left Labour Party, led by Defence Minister Ehud Barak, also supports peace talks and retaining major settlement blocs. As Prime Minister in 2000, Barak proposed an Israeli withdraw from most of the West Bank and Arab areas of east Jerusalem, the Israeli-annexed sector of the city the Palestinians claim as a future capital. Labour's current platform calls for an undefined "special regime" in east Jerusalem's Old City area.
The hawkish Likud Party of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said it is willing to make limited territorial concessions, but only after Palestinians halt violence and disarm militant groups. Netanyahu says conditions are not ripe for peace talks, wants to expand West Bank settlements and keep all of east Jerusalem.
The ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party led by Avigdor Lieberman favours redrawing Israel's borders to push areas with heavy Israeli-Arab populations outside of sovereign Israel and under Palestinian jurisdiction.
THE PALESTINIANS
There is broad consensus across the mainstream Israeli parties that there can be no talks with Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls the Gaza Strip. Likud and Livni go even further in saying that Hamas, already dealt a severe blow by a three-week Israeli military offensive, should be toppled by force.
Both Kadima and Labour are willing to seek a peace deal with Hamas' rival, moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, though they say there can be no final agreement until he regains control of Gaza. Hamas seized power of the coastal territory in June 2007 after ousting forces loyal to Abbas.
Likud does not believe Abbas is capable of implementing a peace deal. It says talks should be limited to developing the West Bank economy, with issues on Palestinian independence to be addressed only when economic conditions improve.
Lieberman opposes peace talks with the Palestinians.
THE SAUDI PROPOSAL FOR A COMPREHENSIVE MIDEAST PEACE
Kadima and Labour are willing for negotiations over the plan, which calls for an Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 borders in exchange for a sweeping Mideast peace. Likud and Lieberman oppose it.
- AP
