Prime Minister Ariel Sharon emerged in the strongest position after Israel's Jan. 28 elections, but the ideological bent of his next government will not be known until after he completes negotiations with leaders of other parties to build a majority bloc in the 120-member Knesset.

Sharon's Likud party received enough votes from Israeli voters to double its representation to 38 seats — 23 fewer than the simple majority required to form a government. The next largest blocs were Labor, under Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna, which fell from 26 to 19 seats, and Shinui, under Yosef Lapid, which jumped from 6 seats to 15.

Sharon told election night supporters and the news media that "we can take joy in the victory, but there is no room for celebration. The fight against terrorist organizations is not over, and it claims victims daily. The Iraqi threat still looms over us. The socio-economic crisis still threatens the
stability of the economy and the chances of every Israeli citizen for prosperity. ... This is a time for soul-searching, for banding together and joining forces in order to achieve a real victory — a victory over terror and the beginning of a real political process, a victory over unemployment
and a renewal of economic growth. Then, and only then, will we celebrate the
victory of the Israeli people."

Appealing for unity, he said: "I appeal to all the parties: the differences between us are small in the face of the murderous hatred of terrorist organizations for everything that is Israeli and Jewish, the threat of war in the Gulf and injury to Israel, and the economic crisis that is tearing apart Israeli society. We must not allow Israel to be divided from within, consumed by unfounded hatred. Not during war. Not during crisis. Not now."

Mitzna, conceding the election, said that Labor will not join a coalition government with Sharon. "Politics are a marathon, and we are only in the first few kilometers," he said. "It is no shame to be in the opposition, and I promise you that our time there will be short," he said.

Lapid has expressed interest in having Shinui serve in the government, but not if that government were to include the religious parties. Shinui, a secularist party, had campaigned on ending what it calls favoritism toward the religious segment of Israeli society. In particular, the party targeted exemptions from military service for religious students.

Despite these statements, many observers believe either Labor or Shinui or both could be lured into a coalition if Sharon were to offer sufficient concessions. Lapid already has indicated some flexibility regarding the religious parties, saying if the United States goes to war against Iraq, he
would consider serving in a unity government.

Two ultrareligious parties earned 16 seats among them — with 11 going to Shas and 5 to the Torah and Shabbat Judaism party. If Sharon were to ally with them, along with the Orthodox, but non-Haredi, National Religious Party, which earned 6 seats, he would just need one more seat for a Knesset majority.

An alliance with Shinui also is possible, with the two parties combining for 53 votes, then joining with the right-wing National Unity party, which earned 7 seats, and with either Israel B'Aliyah — the party of Russian immigrants — which earned 2 seats, or the One Nation party led by Amir
Peretz with 3 seats, or possibly with all three of those smaller parties.

Far less likely to serve in a Sharon-led coalition are the parties joining Labor on the Left such as Meretz, which has 6 seats, and three Arab parties (Arab Movement for Renewal, National Democratic Assembly and United Arab List), which among them earned 8.

The simple mathematics of coalition-building is not Sharon's only consideration. The United States has been pushing Sharon to offer concessions to the Palestinians leading toward eventual creation of an independent Palestinian state. Sharon reportedly is reluctant to build a
government relying strictly on religious and right-wing parties for fear of eroding vital U.S. support for Israel in its fight against terrorism.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who delivered his State of the Union message after the Israeli election results were known, offered indirect support for Sharon's campaign against terror when he said the U.S. stands opposed to the terrorist underground, "including groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad...," three of Israel¹s main foes.

In the immediate aftermath of the elections, there were some high-profile developments:

• Natan Sharansky, whose Yisrael B'Aliyah party dropped from 4 seats in the current Knesset to 2, announced that he will yield his seat in the Parliament to a candidate lower down the list. Even without being a member of the Knesset, he could serve in the government as an appointed minister.

•Yossi Sarid, a leader of Meretz, resigned his Knesset seat after his leftist, pro-peace party dropped from 10 seats in the current Knesset to 6.

• Fourteen parties failed to reach the threshhold of 1.5 percent of the total vote, and therefore received no seats in the Knesset. Among them were Herut, the right-wing party which once had been the base for Prime Minister Menachem Begin; the Green Leaf party, which advocated marijuana legalization, and the environmentalist Green party.

• Yassir Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority, offered on Israeli television to meet with Sharon "tonight, if he's ready, I¹m ready," and, not unexpectedly, Sharon's office replied that Arafat, regarded by the prime minister as the architect of terrorism, "is not and will not be a
negotiating partner." 

• A far more cordial reception was given Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, who called Sharon after the election to congratulate him. Sharon tentatively accepted Mubarak's invitation to visit Cairo to discuss Middle East peace, saying such a visit must await the completion of formation of the new government.
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Yuval Rotem, consul-general of Israel in Los Angeles, told Heritage that there was an eeriness to the fact that Labor earned only 19 seats, exact same number of seats that Likud earned in 1999, when its fortunes were at an ebb and Ehud Barak of the Labor Party became prime minister.

Rotem said 1999 marked the "first time Likud ever relinquished territories to the Palestinian Authority," despite the fact that its ideology was about keeping control of Greater Israel. In 2003, he said, Labor lost seats because, although it talks about peace, "there is no one to deal with ...
The left wing has no peace plan to submit to the Israeli people."

The consul-general suggested that in each case 19 seats represented the hard-core, unshakeable supporters of Likud and Labor.

He suggested that the growth of Shinui may be a reflection of the fact that the electorate believed that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute was impervious to solution, no matter who was elected prime minister. That being the case, he said, the electorate decided to focus on other issues, such as Shinui's championing of secularism over the religious parties. "The moment major issues come back on the agenda, you will see a further decline of the minor parties," Rotem predicted.

Locally, some analysis of Israel's elections was offered in San Diego by Reuven Hazan, a Hebrew University political science professor, who spoke to the United Jewish Federation. He commented that voter turnout of 68.5 percent was quite low for Israel, where typically nearly 80 percent of the voters go to the polls.

One contributing factor, he said, may have been that in the past four years Israel has had three elections, each conducted with different rules. Israel had direct election of the prime minister in one recent election, but for this one returned to the old parliamentary system in which the prime
minister is the party leader who can put together a ruling coalition in the Knesset.