The extraordinarily close election counts in Israel conceal several major political trends and cross currents which will affect the winner of the contest for the office of prime minister. There was a very high turnout, and the recent constitutional change which separated the vote for prime minister from that for the parliamentary parties has proved to be a crucial factor in determining who is asked to form a government.
If it is Mr Shimon Peres, the Labour Party leader, as the exit polls indicated at first, he will almost certainly be able to assemble a coalition capable of pursuing a programme of peace with Israel's Arab neighbours. The more clearcut indications of a Labour lead in the parliamentary vote lent credibility to such an expectation. But his domestic and international mandates would be heavily circumscribed by the apparent swing by the majority of Jewish voters against him and by the indications that Israeli Arabs gave him crucial support.
If the victor is Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party, he too could probably form a government, given the fragmentation of the overall vote, which saw support bleeding away from the two main blocs towards smaller religious parties and those representing recent immigrants.
This combination of stark political polarisation on the Middle East peace process between the two main parties and their leaders and fragmentation of their party political bases is paradoxical but revealing. Arab realists observing the contest were last night drawing the conclusion from it that a momentum towards peace would continue irrespective of which man wins such a close contest. But it would be a great mistake to underestimate the different strategies laid out by them and the different dynamics that would flow from whoever gains the eventual majority. Even a tiny majority would be sufficient to release the respective political energies and to make changes that could then be used to transform popular perceptions.
Several deep cleavages running through Israeli society are revealed by these preliminary results, of which that on the peace process is only the most prominent. Alongside it are those between secular and religious Israelis, between recent Russian immigrants and more long standing settlers who are themselves divided between western and oriental Jews, and between Jewish and Arab Israeli voters. For many Israelis individual security and prosperity take precedence over peace plans; but many also remain open to be convinced about whether they might be made more secure by a settlement with their neighbours.
That is why the possibility at this writing that Mr Peres might still with the prime ministerial contest by the slimmest of margins remains the most hopeful sign of this contest. He is well placed to transform it into a historic opportunity for change in the next parliamentary term and his programme holds out most hope for a regional settlement. It was probably the most important election to have been fought in Israel, in which the alternatives of peace and security were most starkly counterposed. This outcome serves to underline how difficult it has been for such a divided society to make up its mind.