The Israeli election

The implications of this week's Israeli election were not unlike those of South Africa's referendum (among white South Africans to decide on the future of negotiations to end apartheid rule) of March 1992.

Whatever the outcome the choice for Israel, as for white South Africa then, was not between proceeding with the peace process or scrapping it. The choice was between proceeding with a very fraught process or attempting to turn back the clock.

The latter course is bound to fail. Regional tensions, and pressure from the U.S. government -- on whose goodwill Israel relies for survival and which is committed to the process initiated by assassinated Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin -- would ultimately force Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party to return to the negotiating table. The cost of a lengthy hiatus, though, would be much greater. It would ensure even more bloodshed and tension -- both between Israel and its neighbors, and within an increasingly divided Israel.

Likud's gains demonstrate that the terrorist deeds of Hamas and other extremist groups paid off to a large extent. Many Israeli voters, horrified by the attacks on civilians, reacted as Hamas hoped by seeking to halt a peace process designed to lead to historic compromise.

The process has been damaged by the election campaign, during which the Labor Party sought to counter that effect by its bombing raids into Lebanon. These also caused scores of civilian deaths. In the end, however Benjamin Netanyahu will have to confront the imperative of the peace process.

-- Business Day, Johannesburg