Israeli voters are presented with a stark choice between peace and security as they decide whether to vote for Labour or Likud in tomorrow's general elections. The rest of the world will watch the elections with profound interest, aware that they will chart the future of the Middle East peace process and the region's stability. But it falls to individual Israeli voters, concerned about their own safety and prosperity, to decide. Many will do so with little regard for the wider political implications of their vote, but the outcome will undoubtedly affect the safety and prosperity of their state and their region just as much as their own.
The election has revolved around the credibility of the competing visions offered by the Labour Party led by Mr Shimon Peres and Likud led by Mr Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr Peres stands by the Oslo peace accords and the process they set in train that led to autonomy for the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza and the commitment to negotiate a settlement that would resolve the issues of Palestinian statehood, the future of Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees. Mr Netanyahu would freeze the process at the existing autonomy, refuse to concede a future Palestinian state and encourage extensive new Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
In one model territory is exchanged for peace, in the other it is held on to as a sure guarantee of security. The psychological profiles of the two men have become inextricably part of the competition between them, the older Mr Peres appealing to a regional peace dynamic, an historic compromise with the Arab world, which Mr Netanyahu scorns as incompatible with a secure Israel.
As in all such electoral polarities the contrasts between the two positions are overdrawn. Who, contemplating the recent Israeli Operation Grapes of Wrath in southern Lebanon, which drove 400,000 people from their homes and culminated in the Qana massacre, would conclude that Mr Peres, who directed it, is indifferent to Israeli security interests or incapable of confusing strength with peace making? Or who would not expect Mr Netanyahu in office to take account of international and regional pressure to reach a peace agreement with Israel's neighbours? Many Arabs believe the Israeli election offers a spurious choice between peace and security, an attitude epitomised by the remark of the Libyan government newspaper al-Jamahiriya that it is like choosing between the left and right doors into Hell, because both men denied human rights to the Arab people in their television encounter on Sunday night.
A more informed but no less drastic view was taken yesterday by the Syrian foreign minister, Mr Farouk al Shara, who said a victory for Mr Netanyahu would be a choice for war not peace, because of his refusal to contemplate giving up the Golan Heights. This is a clear signal to the Israeli electorate that Israel's most formidable antagonist would prefer to deal with Mr Peres. So would most of the rest of the Arab states and most Palestinians who have, however reluctantly, come to the same conclusion. Security is indeed better guaranteed by making peace with Israel's enemies, as Mr Peres's predecessor, Yitzhak Rabin, repeatedly stressed before his assassination last November. It is to be hoped the Israeli electorate absorbs the lesson when it votes tomorrow.