Wounded Barak's final plea

By PHIL REEVES

JERUSALEM - Israel's Ehud Barak made a last despairing appeal to the public yesterday to help him pull off a miraculous turn-around and save him from humiliation in today's election.

As he did so, the Middle East watched on warily as the lacklustre election contest fizzled towards a close with little evidence that the Prime Minister can block the path to power of Ariel Sharon.

Opinion polls last night had Barak trailing the Likud Party leader by between 18 and 26 points. Voting starts tonight New Zealand time.

On the last full day of campaigning, his closing efforts to rally support were met with yet another setback as the rabbis behind the powerful ultra-Orthodox blocs shepherded their followers towards his opponent.

Barak supporters vowed to plaster the country with banners and fly posters in the dying few hours before the election, but it seemed typical of his ill-fortune that yesterday - for once, in this bone-dry region - it was pouring with rain.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting, Barak tried again to woo back a crucial consituency that he must get out to the polling booths if he is stand a chance of ressurrection - Israeli Arabs. In what came close to an apology, he expressed regret over the deaths of 13 Arab citizens, shot by police at the start of the al-Aqsa intifada.

"As Prime Minister, I bear overall responsibility for everything that happens in the country during my tenure, including the events in which 13 Arab citizens were killed. On behalf of the Government and myself, I express deep sorrow ... no Israeli citizen should have to be killed in any demonstration, even an illegal one."

His remarks were an attempt to persuade Israeli Arabs - 12 per cent of the electorate - to ignore pressure from Arab parties to boycott the election, or to cast blank ballots as a protest over the killings, which were unprecedented in Israel's history. But there is every chance that his words will be dismissed as electioneering and that the sector, which overwhelmingly supported him in 1999, will now leave the Labour leader to drown - even though this means letting in Sharon, known among them as "The Butcher of Beirut."

Barak has been lurching towards election day unpopular, isolated and unable to contain continuing bloodshed in the occupied territories.

In contrast, such is the confidence emanating from Sharon's team that he cancelled final day TV and radio appearances, happy to cruise to the finishing line without risking unexpected slip-ups.

Attention in Israel has already begun to switch towards what kind of Administration Sharon will establish - a national unity government, which will include Labour, or a narrower right-wing government.

Like Barak, whose coalition collapsed last summer, he will face a highly fractious Knesset, and will have a herculean task in knitting it together.

The Barak camp yesterday remained defiantly optimistic that the Premier still stood a chance.

In an effort to rally apathetic or undecided voters, it launched a telemarketing blitz, and circulated 300,000 leaflets in which Barak declared the election to be a "matter of life or death ... we could get stuck, perhaps unintentionally, in another cycle of searing hatred, sorrow and children who do not return home."

"Anyone who thinks Sharon has the election in the bag should wait and see," said Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, Communications Minister.

However, these attempts at a fight-back have not been helped by embarrassingly open rifts within the Labour ranks, in which senior figures have been manoeuvering to take over from Barak, should he lose. Overall, his campaign has seemed dispirited and subdued. Until last weekend, it was overshadowed by the possibility that he would be replaced by Shimon Peres.

In an effort to reverse the polls, it began sowing doubts about the health of Sharon, who is hugely overweight, approaching 73 years, and is rumoured to suffer memory losses, fatigue, and concentration lapses.

But now Sharon has consolidated his position by securing the endorsement of key parts of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, which comprises about 9 per cent of Israel's voters and tends unquestioningly to follow the instructions of their rabbis. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Shas, the Knesset's third largest party, told his followers in a sermon to support the Likud leader. The council of "sages" who control United Torah Judaism, the Ashkenazi (European) ultra-Orthodox faction, also came out in favour of Sharon.

If Barak is to execute a Houdini-like escape from disaster, he will need a change of heart from a large number of Israelis whose faith he has lost in the last 21 months.

He needs to be forgiven by the Arabs, to be supported anew by Russians and the left, and to convince the wadge of "don't knows" who have muddied the poll results.

Otherwise, he is out - and a political career that began with such high hopes will be in ruins.

- HERALD CORRESPONDENT

Herald Online feature: Middle East

Map of the Middle East

UN: Information on the Question of Palestine

Israel's Permanent Mission to the UN

Palestine's Permanent Observer Mission to the UN

Middle East Daily

Arabic News

Arabic Media Internet Network

Jerusalem Post

Israel Wire

US Department of State - Middle East Peace Process