MIDEAST : Playing on Fears and Tears in Israeli Election Campaign

JERUSALEM — Their names will not appear on the ballot, of course, but the opening television advertisements in the homestretch of Israel’s national election campaign pit slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin against Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Or, as some Israelis have suggested, tears against fears.

The governing Labor Party uses just enough footage of Rabin to recall the national outpouring of love and sadness over his assassination last year, but not so much that the martyred peacemaker overshadows his partner and successor, Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

The message: Peres is continuing the peace process that Rabin began. You trusted us then; trust us now.

The opposition Likud Party, on the other hand, shows Peres with his other partner in peace--Arafat, the man in fatigues and a checkered kaffiyeh whom most Likud supporters still regard as a terrorist.

“Peres and Arafat, a dangerous combination for Israel,” says the narrator as a picture of the two is shown.

Likud candidate Benjamin Netanyahu, poised in a somber room that looks a lot like the Oval Office, says, “I know that many of you live in fear--fear of boarding a bus, fear of sending the children to school. There is a sense that the next attack is on the way, it’s only a matter of time.”

Under a peculiar Israeli law, pictures and voices of the candidates may not be broadcast in the final three weeks before an election, except in paid ads. The ads, which begin the day news coverage stops, are grouped together in a single evening slot with allotted time for each of Israel’s myriad political parties. And many Israelis actually sit down to watch them--about 30% to 40% of the country.

For the first time, Israelis will cast two ballots in the May 29 election, a direct vote for prime minister and another for the party they want to represent them in parliament. In the prime minister race, polls show the only two candidates, Peres and Netanyahu, in almost a dead heat, with a small percentage of voters still to make up their minds.

There is basically only one issue in this election: which of the two candidates for prime minister offers a better blueprint for making peace with security. Labor’s slogan--”The nation is strong with Peres.” Likud’s--”Making a secure peace.”

The TV ads are aimed at the 150,000 or so undecided voters. Peres apparently believes most of those are young people. His MTV-style spots show him surrounded by Israeli youths who are singing, waving flags, showering him with kisses, listening intently, then applauding his vision of peacemaking.

“We used to be surrounded by five enemies. We have peace now with three. There are two left, Syria and Lebanon, and we will make peace with them too. I believe that in the next four years it is possible to achieve comprehensive peace in the Middle East. . . . We have a lot of work ahead of us, but I want you to enter the 21st century prepared--educated and free of wars,” Peres says in one segment.

Netanyahu responds that Israel has everything but true peace and security. “Mr. Peres tried in his own way to bring peace. He entrusted our security in the hands of Arafat, and you have all seen the results--an unprecedented deterioration in the personal security of every single citizen,” he says.

Another ad for Likud, and its allies in the small Tsomet and Gesher parties, shows the remains of a Hamas suicide bus bombing with the words “no peace,” a car hit by Katyusha rocket fire from Hezbollah guerrillas with the words “no security” and underneath, “no reason to vote for Peres.”

Netanyahu’s ads show a series of Israelis who say they voted for Rabin and Labor last time but are disappointed and now will vote Likud.

Labor responds with an ad showing Netanyahu as a Russian toy--a matrushka doll--zigzagging in his position on peace issues. Each time he changes his mind, a hand takes out a smaller and smaller one of the nesting wooden figures until only a tiny Netanyahu is left standing. Referring to the candidate by his diminutive nickname, the narrator says, “Israel is too big for you, B.B.”

The campaign has been relatively mild by Israeli standards, but political observers note that there are more than two weeks to go. The ads will continue nightly and still could get down-and-dirty by election day.