Photos by the Associated Press and David Joseph

Clockwise from top center, two Israeli
soldiers at a bus stop in Tel Aviv with
images of Netanyahu and Shas Party
leader Rabbi Caduri; two boys wrapped
themselves in images of Mordechai; before
it was defaced, the poster read "Barak,
Mordecai, Begin, Horchana, A Goat,
You, Me: JUST NOT NETAIVYAHU!";
banners at the outdoor Mahane Yehuda
market in Jerusalem hailed Netayahu;
"There is no hope with
Barak" said a sign in
Jerusalem; Pnina
Rosenblum's new image
didn't seize voter
attention; an ad for
Netayahu is pasted over
the face of Barak.

Washington
Braces

JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent

Washington
linton administration offi-
cials — for whom the
Mideast peace process is a
cornerstone of their foreign
policy efforts — are straining to keep
up their public facade of impartiality
as the election campaign in Israel
moves into its final hours.
But, according to academics and
opponents of the administration poli-
cies, concerns are lurking just below the
surface about the impact of a victory by
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
on the promised U.S. effort to revive
the Israeli-Palestinian talks, and a grow-
ing realization that a win by Labor
leader Ehud Barak is no guarantee of a
quick end to the dangerous stalemate.
Regardless of who wins on Monday
— or in a June 1 runoff— the Israeli-
Palestinian standoff will not end quick-
ly, despite the one-year target date for
completion of permanent status talks
recently set by the administration, said
Yossi Alpher, director of the American
Jewish Committee's Israel office and a
noted Israeli political analyst.
"The notion you can complete final
status talks a year from now is pretty
unrealistic," he said. "Those talks were
initially allotted three years — and
even Then, many of us felt that while
there could be substantial progress,
you couldn't clear up everything."
And a Barak victory, he said, will
not jump-start the stalled talks. "It's
going to take a month to put a gov-
ernment together, another to begin to
function," he said. "By then you're
into August, when everybody in Israel
is on vacation. September is the High
Holidays. Realistically, nothing will
really start before October."
If Barak decides to implement the
provisions of last year's Wye Accords,
he said, the right will likely try to hold
up peace talks even longer through
parliamentary maneuvers.
The administration, Alpher suggest-
ed, would have little option but to sup-
port Barak, even though it would miss
the one-year goal set fora final deal.
If there is a Netanyahu victory,
Washington will anxiously wait to see
what coalition he puts together.
Another right-wing/religious govern-
ment would quickly put U.S.-Israel
WASHINGTON on page 25

The Americans
Cometh

Washington's most famous spinmeisters
have changed Israeli electioneering.

T

Jerusalem

he Americanization of Israeli
politics — so prominent in
. this race — was certified in
.
the 1996 election when
Likud challenger Binyamin Netanyahu
hired Republican Parry gunslinger
Arthur Finkelstein as an adviser.
Finkelstein, who had coached
Republicans Jesse Helms and Alfonse
D'Amato in their Senate campaigns,
was known as a master of the negative
campaign. So he had Netanyahu tie
incumbent Prime Minister Shimon
Peres to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat,
hammering away at the upsurge in ter-
ror since the Rabin-Peres regime came
to office four years earlier. Over and
over, Netanyahu repeated the devastat-
ing slogan, "Peres w ill divide Jerusalem."
It worked.

Ehud Barak, the 1999 Labor party
,,
((
challenger, decided to out-Finkelstein
Finkelstein. He brought in James
Carville, the man who steered Bill
Clinton to the White House. Under
his tutelage, Barak has reminded Israeli
voters of what they'd seemed to have
forgotten: that he, the most decorated
military man in the country's history,
is no slouch when it comes to security.
Night after night on the TV campaign
ads, viewers see archive photos of
Barak dressed not in a suit, but in a
uniform; not seated, hands clasped, for
a talk show, but standing, gun in his
hand, over a Palestinian terrorist he'd
just shot. This is a macho country, and
Carville, an ex-Marine from Louisiana,
knows macho talk.
He, too, believes in repeating sim-
ple, effective messages until they lodge

deep in voters' brains. He's had Barak
drive home the accusation that the
Netanyahu government "is mired
down on every front" — especially
concerning the economy and educa-
tion. Barak has filled the TV screen
with Israelis struggling to feed their
families, Israelis who voted for
Netanyahu in 1996 and have had
enough of him.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu, again
under Finkelstein's wing, seems to be
waging the last campaign all over
again. His commercials show scenes
of past bus bombings and remind
Israelis — correctly — that under his
rule, terror has dropped. Once again,
he boasts that only he can keep
Jerusalem undivided.
But with terror subsided,
Netanyahu is offering to solve a prob-
lem that many voters see as already
solved. Besides, Barak, with a nearly
matchless record as a scourge of ter-
rorists, was in the army most of the
time the buses were exploding. As for
Netanyahu's Jerusalem gambit, Barak
has neutralized this by repeatedly
showing Jerusalem Mayor Ehud
Olmert declaring that Barak is "dedi-
cated" to maintaining Israeli sover-
eignty over the entire capital.
As it happens, rumors swirl that
Netanyahu blames Finkelstein for a
recent drop in the polls. And
Carville? He's enhancing a global rep-
utation as the mildly liberal politi-
cian's best friend. P1

— Larry Derfner

5/14
1999

Detroit Jewish News

23