Israelis’ Votes Show Depth of National Division : Rightward shift could roil the ties with Washington

Israel’s election results show a citizenry split evenly on where negotiations with the Palestinians should take the country and far less ready than before to put its trust in the two major political parties. Wednesday’s was the first election in which separate ballots could be cast for the prime minister and a party. Many Israelis responded by voting for smaller, special-interest parties. The four religious parties gained seats in the Knesset. So did two Arab parties. A new party that appealed to the large and neglected body of immigrants from the former Soviet Union bodes to become a significant force and a presence in the next government. Israel’s multi-party democracy has always produced coalition governments, in which small parties have extracted sometimes exorbitant favors from coalition builders in exchange for their support. This election will extend that tradition.

Final results won’t be known until absentee ballots cast by military members, hospital patients and prison inmates are tallied, either today or Sunday. (The inmates, in a grotesque irony, include Yigal Amir, who last November murdered Yitzhak Rabin.) The unofficial results point to a hair-thin victory in the contest for prime minister by Benjamin Netanyahu of the rightist Likud Party. Clearly with a wary eye on President Clinton’s profound commitment to furthering the peace process, Netanyahu has said he will continue negotiations with the Palestinians, but on terms markedly different from those of Labor’s Shimon Peres, whom he appears to have defeated. Netanyahu promises that as prime minister he would expand Israeli settlements on the West Bank and refuse to discuss Palestinian claims to a political presence in Jerusalem. A Likud-led government wouldn’t try to reverse the peace process but plainly would do nothing to advance it.

It will be a while before the consequences of Israel’s lurch to the right become clear. One thing to watch is whether the historical thaw in political and economic relations with the larger Arab world achieved by Rabin and Peres continues. A second point of focus will be Netanyahu’s relations with Washington. In his first response to the election, Clinton spoke of America’s enduring support for the well-being of the Israeli people and for advancing the peace process. In the U.S. view the two are indivisibly linked. Netanyahu and his supporters believe otherwise. U.S.-Israeli relations may be heading for another period of heated political controversy. Polling: Shaping a country’s future.