Down in Polls, Netanyahu Attacks

JERUSALEM —  Lagging behind in the polls less than two weeks before a national election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gone on the offensive in ways his opponents say are both divisive and potentially very successful.

Netanyahu infused his bid for reelection with chilling reminders of Palestinian terrorism, appeals to the wounded pride of Israel’s ethnic voters and triumphant claims that only his hard-line rigor can force the likes of Yasser Arafat to behave.

Opponents say Netanyahu’s new hardball tactics play on hatreds and fears that harm Israel’s polarized society. Netanyahu and his supporters say he is merely taking credit where credit is due, while dramatizing the weaknesses of his principal rival, Labor Party head Ehud Barak.

Speaking to a group of reporters on Tuesday, Netanyahu expressed confidence that he will win the May 17 vote and defended controversial campaign ads that used stark footage of passenger buses being scorched and ripped to shreds by Arab terrorist bombs. The scenes, from the months before Netanyahu came to power, suggest that a subsequent decline in terrorism is Netanyahu’s doing. The message is that any other prime minister would not be so tough.

Families of victims were outraged and staged a protest outside the prime minister’s office. But Netanyahu maintains the spots are legitimate.

“There is a very clear issue, and that is, did we bring down terror?” Netanyahu said Tuesday. “Were we able to stop these exploding buses?”

Political commentators on both the right and left branded the ads “repulsive” but said they were effective. Pollsters and analysts agreed that Netanyahu and his advisors had pushed the right button for many Israelis who rank personal security as a paramount concern.

Still, it was not at all clear to what extent the bombed-bus ads would sway voters. Pollsters said ads generally strengthen preexisting attitudes rather than change opinions or voting intentions. But the tone of a campaign can certainly be altered.

“Instead of being a more or less civilized campaign, to the extent that political campaigns can be, it becomes more emotional,” said Ephraim Yaar, head of the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University. “And when emotions dominate, things can get out of hand.”

The decision to exploit scenes of terrorism reportedly created dissension within Netanyahu’s own Likud Party and came only after the incumbent fell 8 percentage points behind Barak in some polls. The tactic was said to be the work of Netanyahu’s highly paid American consultant, Arthur Finkelstein, although Israeli newspapers said Finkelstein preferred to hold off to see if Netanyahu slipped further in the polls.

Terrorist bombings in 1996 did create fear and drive some voters away from Netanyahu’s competitor, then-incumbent Shimon Peres. But other events, including a disastrous military offensive in Lebanon, also figured in Netanyahu’s victory.

Statistics show that incidents of terrorism, in fact, have dropped in the last three years, but not everyone credits Netanyahu. Israeli intelligence and military officials attribute the decline to several factors, including Israeli arrests and killings of key Palestinian terrorists as well as Arafat’s own crackdown on militants.

Netanyahu’s campaign team was also hoping to score points by playing the Israeli version of a race card in an appeal to ethnic voters.

An actress who supports Barak made ill-advised public comments that labeled as “riffraff” the working-class, mostly Sephardic supporters of Netanyahu. The Sephardim--Jews from the Middle East and North Africa--back Netanyahu because he has cast himself as an underdog and “outsider,” despite his own upper-class background.

Barak eventually condemned the actress’ remarks, but Netanyahu had already jumped on what he portrayed as yet another example of the Labor Party’s historic disregard for minorities. Labor traditionally was composed of Ashkenazi, or European, Jews, and resentment between them and the Sephardim is one of the deepest fault lines in Israeli society.

Just as Netanyahu’s campaign seemed to be taking the moral high ground, however, the prime minister was caught on a microphone telling supporters at an outdoor market that Barak and his followers are an arrogant elite who “hate the people.”

“The Russians, the Ethiopians--they hate all those who aren’t with them,” Netanyahu said, in comments that were widely attacked as outrageous even for the blunt-talking Likud leader.