Barak-Clinton link was no match for Israel's morale crisis

JERUSALEM — This city may be known as holy, but over the years downtown Jerusalem has become a venue for rock and roll.

Bars located minutes away from Christian, Islamic and Jewish holy sites featured bands that blared everything from grunge to acid jazz. University students and just plain kids packed streets that buzzed until dawn.

No longer. Since October, Jerusalem's downtown has been largely dead.

Israel's mini-war with the Palestinians has reached this city as well as much of the country. Bars have closed down. People are no longer in the mood to party.

The dip in morale can be seen throughout the country. Tel Aviv had a far more active night life. Little remains of this today.

The Israeli election on Tuesday is not about a peace agreement with the Palestinians. It is a search for a leadership that will pull the Jewish state out of its depression and provide direction amid threats of regional war and Arab insurgency.

"On the eve of the election, I am living in fear," said Shulamit Aloni, a former minister and leader of the left-wing Meretz Party, who supports Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Few expect Likud challenger Ariel Sharon to make an immediate difference. But his frontrunner position is based on the feeling by the majority of Israeli Jews that he can't be any worse than Barak.

Barak's spiral downward is unprecedented. He was touted by supporters and even critics as the most capable man for leadership. His intellectual abilities, strategic vision and courage were described in nearly supernatural terms.

As it turned out, Barak's image was just that. Driven by ego and a fear of relying on others, Barak alienated friends and allies everywhere — whether in his Labor Party or among Jewish leaders abroad. His only loyalty was to then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, the man who more than anybody else groomed Barak for his 1999 election victory.

As prime minister, Barak boasted that he would slaughter what he termed sacred cows that governed Israel on defense and political issues. The 58-year-old prime minister withdrew unilaterally from Lebanon and eliminated a buffer zone in southern Lebanon that protected Israel's northern border.

He has promised to do the same in the West Bank and Gaza Strip amid Palestinian attacks on Jerusalem.

Another sacred cow has been religion. Barak, facing a largely traditional electorate, launched efforts to shatter a 50-year detente with Judaism. The prime minister, who offered to cede control over Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem, has promised to begin public transport on the Jewish Sabbath, close down the Religious Affairs Ministry and end rabbinical authority on such issues as Jewish marriage and divorce.

It didn't work. Ordinary Israelis were alarmed by the Palestinian bombings and the zeal to change the rules of the Jewish state. To them, Barak would rather demonstrate his daring than perform the basic duties of leadership. For Israelis the desperation has grown to the point where much of the elite — including academics, businessmen, engineers and journalists — is openly discussing the prospect of emigrating.

"Sharon's victory is the result of a tremendous disappointment in Ehud Barak and not more than that," political analyst Yaron Dekel said. Barak was projected on Tuesday to lose by the biggest margin ever in an Israeli national election. And the defeat will be to Sharon, a man deemed as unsuitable for leadership since the 1982 Lebanon war.

Sharon is not an unknown quality. He was a gung-ho defense minister in the early 1980s but a cautious foreign minister in the late 1990s. He is 72 and the death of his wife and partner, Lilly, is said to have had a significant affect on his life. His energy level has clearly dropped over the last year and he sometimes appears disoriented.

The Likud chief won't have any time to celebrate his victory. His challenges will be to prepare Israel and its military for war. It could be war with the Palestinians and the Lebanese Hizbullah. It could be a regional war that includes Egypt.

His other challenge is Israel's Arab minority. The Arabs have been ordered by their Islamic leadership to boycott the elections. Officials expect this to mark a turning point for the one million member community and a plunge toward insurgency. Already, most Arab leaders are avoiding their left-wing Jewish allies.

Arab politicians said the boycott is fueled by opposition to Barak, who promised peace and prosperity but whose goverment ordered police to fire at pro-Palestinian protesters in October. Thirteen Arabs were killed in the clashes with police and Arab leaders have rejected Barak's recent apologies.

"The boycott of the elections is first and foremost a protest move against the Israeli left, particularly the Labor Party," said Abdul Wahab Darhoushe, who less than a decade ago left the Labor Party and is now aligned with the Islamists. "They thought that we would automatically support their candidates."

Nobody envisions that Sharon can handle the job of prime minister alone. He will seek a unity government with the Labor Party. So far, the Labor Party leadership is not interested. Many party veterans will first want to oust Barak and this effort could take months.

"In many ways, the Knesset and political parties don't understand the importance of the hour," a leading political source said. "In this respect, the people are far more aware of the situation than we are."