Mr Benjamin Netanyahu's newly unveiled election campaign slogan, "A Strong Leader for a Strong Nation", is provoking a storm of protest in Israel from critics who insist it recalls the fascist slogans of Nazi Germany.
The Prime Minister is unrepentant - in 1996, he noted yesterday, Labour's Mr Shimon Peres campaigned unsuccessfully against him under the slogan "Israel is Strong with Peres" - and posters bearing the new message are to go up across the country today.
His colleagues insist that the carping is mere opposition hysteria. And a spokeswoman for Mr Netanyahu's Likud party asserted that the slogan justifiably underlined the fact that "Netanyahu is a strong leader, protecting the interests of the state of Israel", while the Labour opposition leader, Mr Ehud Barak, was "prepared to capitulate" to the Palestinians.
The Labour party is indeed leading the chorus of outrage. Mr Avraham Burg, a would-be Labour Knesset member and head of the Jewish Agency (which oversees aspects of Israel's relations with international Jewry) lamented that the slogan, for many, echoed the slogans of the Nazi era, and urged Mr Netanyahu to abandon it.
But the protests extend beyond the political arena, to include historians and others troubled by perceived Holocaust echoes. Prof Ze'ev Sternhall, an expert on rightwing groups in Europe, condemned the slogan as "nauseating", said no other western democratic party would employ it, and noted that it implied "autocratic rule and contempt for the democratic order".
Historian Mr Michael Hertsgor, a Tel Aviv university professor, protested at the "clear connection between the slogan and the fascism of the first half of the 20th century". Such a slogan, he said, "has no place in the free world".
The choice of central campaign message underlines Mr Netanyahu's decision to fight this election as the champion of the hardliners, seeking a renewed mandate as the tough Prime Minister who has made few territorial concessions to the Palestinians and also presided over a period during which there have been relatively few murderous attacks on Israelis by Islamic extremist groups.
When he was elected in May 1996, his first coalition featured Mr David Levy as foreign minister and Mr Yitzhak Mordechai as defence minister - two relative moderates determined to strengthen the peace partnership with the Palestinians. Now, at the end of this term, Mr Ariel Sharon has long since replaced Mr Levy, and Mr Moshe Arens last week replaced Mr Mordechai, so that the two top ministerial posts are filled by men opposed to the Oslo peace accords.
Agencies add:
The Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, reiterated yesterday that the May 4th target for declaring an independent state was a "sacred date", but also said that everything was under discussion.
When pressed by reporters at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on whether he would delay the date amid pressure to do so because of Israeli elections the same month, he said: "Everything is under discussion."
Israeli writers, artists and intellectuals meanwhile have issued a joint appeal in favour of the creation of a Palestinian state in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Breaking with a broad consensus in Israel about the peace process, the 146 signatories also called for Jerusalem to be shared.
In the Gaza Strip yesterday an eight-year-old girl and a Palestinian policeman were killed during a car chase involving wanted members of the Muslim group Hamas, according to Palestinian security officials.