Basically, the main thing which we feel needs to be done in these elections is TO GET RID OF NETANYAHU. For one thing: the last three years would look rosy compared with what Netanyahu might do if he gets a second term. Of course we know that whoever replaces him, Barak or Mordechai, will be far away from what we would really like to see at the helm. There are some supposedly radical leftists who take the position that 'it doesn't matter because there is no difference between Netanyahu and Barak'. The Organisation for Democratic Action (they were once Trotskyites, and publish Challenge) are the main supporters of this position. They were very much discredited when in 1996 they called for casting a blank vote: as you know, the Netanyahu victory was by a very narrow margin, so these blank votes could really have been the decisive factor! Still, the ODA comes up with more or less the same idea also in these elections...

Discounting the blank vote, there is still the option of an independent left-wing candidate, who would try to make a good showing in the first round of voting for prime minister and then (assuming it is a responsible person) support the main anti-Netanyahu candidate in the decisive second round (the kind of position which is common in the French Left). However, the main parties of the Israeli left, Meretz and Hadash, decided not to field a PM candidate, and also the idea of a common candidate of the Arab population failed - due especially to the tense situation between Hadash and the Islamic movement, which are the two main forces among the Arabs in Israel.

(Paradoxically, in the Israeli conditions the Islamists are part of 'the left', representing - a large part of - an oppressed ethnic minority. And it is the position about the Palestinian issue which defines being 'left' in Israel.

In practice the only Arab candidate to present himself is Knesset Member Azmi Bishara. I like him, he is a brilliant academic and is the one who introduced into Israeli politics the concept 'Israel - the state of all its citizens', which has especially a good impact among the Jewish left, but he represents only a minor faction of the Arabs and I am afraid he will not make a very impressive electoral showing.

Anyway, whatever happens in the first round of voting, in the second round we will have to support Barak or Mordechai - whoever of them gets the better result in the first round and makes it into the second.

As to the relative merits and de-merits of Barak and Mordechai, here are some of the arguments which are going around: Barak represents a well-established party, with some prominent doves in its leadership, one of whom - Shlomo Ben Ami - is also the only genuine social democrat to have any significant position in the present Israeli politics. (If Barak becomes Prime Minister there might develop something like the Shroeder/Lafontaine situation in Germany.) Mordechai is representative of an amorphous jury-rigged Centre Party, and he had been Netanyahu's Defence Minister until two months ago.

Against these arguments, there are two which for me are decisive: first, Mordechai has a much better chance than Barak of defeating Netanyahu, for the simple reason that he can take away traditional Likud voters who are very unlikely to vote for Barak or any other Labour candidate - and also Mordechai can get all of Barak's voters, if he is the one who makes it to the second round.

The second argument - with which not everybody agrees - is that Mordechai as Prime Minister may find it more easy to make concessions in peace negotiations. He had been consistently a moderate force during his years in the Netanyahu cabinet, before Wye pushing for such an agreement and even threatening to resign if it is not achieved; he pushed for implantation of Wye, after it was signed. A few weeks ago, when Netanyahu contemplated a large-scale bombing of Lebanon, Mordechai came out in public against any such plan; he met in Amman with Naif Hawatmeh of the hitherto-rejectionist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine... I don't know if Mordechai is genuinely more dovish than Barak, but he has less of a need to prove that he is 'not a leftist'. Barak does feel very strongly such a need, which makes him declare again and again that he is for the annexation of 'some of' the settlements (he is giving a long list of particular settlements); that he is for 'United Jerusalem Forever'; that he is absolutely against the '67 borders... Of course I don't delude myself that Mordechai has our positions on these issues, but he seems to be more flexible.

Anyway, this is the position more or less. We are all very tired of this long drawn out elections campaign, in the course of which the settlers have a practically free hand to take over lands and extend the settlements... It seems Arafat will agree to delay the Declaration of Independence which was due on 4 May, but the new government will be faced with an urgent need to take a position (and make concessions!) about the Palestinians - and also about Syria and Lebanon. Lebanon is one issue where grassroots pressure - especially the very effective movement of soldiers' parents - succeeded in effecting the big parties' elections campaign ( Barak already pledged to 'bring back the boys within a year' if elected).

Finally, I should mention the new Workers' Party. It is certainly a welcome idea, since for many years workers in Israel had practically nobody to represent them (unless you count the Communists, but very few of the Jewish workers support them). Certainly, the Labour Party does not even pretend to be a workers' party, and indeed Barak - taking his cue from Blair - is making an effort to altogether change the party's name...

The problem is that at the moment the Workers' Party does not seem a very big success. If it does badly at the polls, this may discredit the whole idea for many years, and also weaken the Histadtrut's negotiating position in future labour disputes. At the moment the Israeli economy is largely paralysed by a public sector general strike - but this is a different issue...

What do you feel about the Kosova situation? Are you also torn between disgust at the butchery of Milosevic and disgust at the arrogance and hypocrisy of 'the free world'? We decided not to participate in the Communist vigil which was scheduled outside the US Embassy in Tel-Aviv - which does not mean that we like what the Americans are doing.

Enough for now, Adam Keller