Israelis Go To The Polls Today To Decide Their Future

It is late afternoon in Israel and turnout for this year's election is already higher than the last parliamentary race in 2006. The country was united only a few weeks ago during the operation in Gaza, but it is back to its fractious political ways today. The battle though has decidedly shifted over the years. No longer is Labor the power it was under Yitzhak Rabin and earlier on in Israel's history. Labor is a mere side note to the contest between the centrist Kadima led by Tzipi Livni and the iconic figure of Binyamin Netanyahu who runs the right-wing Likud party.

Both candidates have been making appeals across the country:

Front-runners Tzipi Livni and Benjamin Netanyahu made last-minute appeals to Israel's voters Tuesday, as polls opened in a general election that pollsters have said is too close to call.

As Livni cast her ballot in Tel Aviv, the Kadima chairwoman vowed that victory was "within reach."

"I know that the ballot I cast here was 'Ken' Kadima and I know that like me, many others will do so," said Livni, referring to the election code that appears on the ballot for her party. "It's close, it's within reach and what's most important is to go out and vote."

Netanyahu, for his part, urged rightists to vote for his Likud party, warning them that its victory was by no means certain.

Although it is a close race, because of the Israeli system of proportional representation no matter who wins the most seats must form a governing coalition. Conventional wisdom now states that either Livni or Netanyahu must curry the favor of Liberman, who makes Netanyahu look like a leftist. Opinions written in the Huffington Post mostly show the sadness of the left over this election. More than a few writers will vote for the progressive Meretz party, but the are no more than a blip in the current spectrum of Israeli politics.

Across the board though, no matter who Israelis vote for, there is an attitude that the current crop of leaders have nothing on those that came before, such as Golda Meir or David Ben-Gurion. Corruption has rocked the Knesset repeatedly in the last few years and the problems of the State have only gotten worse.

Columnist Nahum Barnea of the Yedioth Ahronoth sums things up:

Barnea argued that the election campaign showed only that Israel's political establishment "no longer meets the needs of the country and society". He wrote: "The larger they are on the billboards, the more they are dwarfed by the country's problems."

One thing is for sure, while this election is important, it can only be a first step towards an eventual peace. If Israelis can moderate their leadership at the polls today and not allow the passionate and violent appeals of Netanyahu and Liberman to lull them into a false sense of security.