NEWS ANALYSIS : Israel Vote Crucial Whatever the Day

JERUSALEM —  If there’s a sure indication that Israel’s next election will be hard-fought with a close outcome, it can be found in the difficulty in setting a date for the vote, sure to be one of the most momentous in the country’s 44-year history.

The Likud Party of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, now governing with a minority coalition, has offered a date of June 23. Some members of the Labor Party, the major opposition, want June 16.

The difference? Labor fears that some of its voters will have gone abroad on vacation by the later date. And Likud frets that youthful high school voters with a right-wing bent might be too heavily engaged in final exams, which will still be under way on the 16th, to bother to vote.

The date issue probably will be settled next week with a parliamentary vote that would dissolve the Parliament, leaving Shamir at the head of a caretaker government. Despite misgivings, Labor appeared Thursday to be leaning toward accepting June 23, partly out of fear that, otherwise, Shamir might cling to power until November, when his four-year term would ordinarily end.

Rarely have elections loomed here in a comparable period of intense political and social flux, calling for key decisions. Middle East peace talks could enter into a delicate discussion of self-rule for Palestinians as well as into talks about future relations with Syria, Israel’s most powerful Arab adversary. The numbers of jobless Soviet immigrants will continue to swell as newcomers leave language school and enter the job market. Israel’s relations with Washington face a test over U.S. conditions for providing guarantees to help Israel borrow billions of dollars.

Festering violence in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip threatens to boil over into inter-communal combat, and a low-intensity war in south Lebanon carries the ever-present danger of an international blowup.

The elections present Israeli voters once again with an opportunity to end a political deadlock that has led to a kind of rule by paralysis for much of the last decade. Neither Likud nor Labor has been able to win a clear majority of seats in the 120-member Parliament, forcing the emergence of a series of unstable coalitions, sometimes between the two leading parties, sometimes between Likud and fractured religious and far-right groups.

Yet most pollsters agree that neither Labor nor Likud can win an outright majority in June--or even come close to it. Which party will come out on top may depend on how 120,000 new immigrant voters cast their ballots; a major swing to one side or the other will decide which of the major parties gets the first crack at coalition building.

Also, both Likud and Labor must settle intense internal leadership rivalries.

Shamir is expected to beat back a challenge from his housing minister, hawkish former Gen. Ariel Sharon. Sharon has staked out the rightist orthodoxy in Likud, opposing the peace talks and any moratorium on building Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

On Thursday, Sharon told a group of Jewish fund-raisers that the government is not considering a freeze on settlement construction as a concession to Washington.

Although Shamir has the backing to fend off Sharon, a good showing by the housing minister would put him in a position to demand a major portfolio in a new government--perhaps foreign affairs or defense, Likud officials say.

In the wings stands Foreign Minister David Levy, who might make a run for the top spot himself.

Likud’s list of candidates, including who will be its choice for prime minister, will be decided in a series of party meetings. Likud will run as the party to be trusted in peace negotiations as well as the party that brought Israel to a new level of international recognition.

In Labor, the rivalry between Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin is once again raging fiercely. The top spot on the ticket will, for the first time, be decided by a party primary in which tens of thousands of Labor voters will choose their candidate for prime minister. Conventional wisdom says that Rabin will outpoll Peres because he has a more hawkish reputation and is seen as an easier sell to Israeli voters. But the more dovish Peres is a more accomplished backslapper and cannot be counted out.

Labor will campaign as the true peace party and one that can better handle immigration problems.

On the far right, the anti-Arab fringe parties are looking to win votes from Likud on the grounds that self-rule for Palestinians will result in formation of an independent Palestinian state.

On the far left, there is a move to unite liberals and Marxists in a drive that is both pro-peace and critical of Likud on the economy.

Religious parties face a reduction in their proportional representation because of an influx of largely secular immigrants. Still, they will try to win enough seats to play power broker.