Israel tense on eve of vote

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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A rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck southern Israel yesterday, violating an informal truce even as Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers appeared to be moving closer to cementing a long-term cease-fire, according to an account by The Associated Press.

The flurry of activity came just two days before Israelis elect a new government expected to take a harder line in talks with the Palestinians. No injuries were reported in the rocket attack on the Nir Am communal farm, but one car was set ablaze and several others were damaged by shrapnel.

With Israeli elections approaching Tuesday, both sides appeared to be racing to reach some sort of arrangement. Polls show that Israel's next government would be much more hawkish than the current coalition, lending added urgency to seal a deal.

Speaking hours after the rocket fire, Netanyahu vowed his government would put a stop to such attacks. "It starts by sporadic firings, then turns into a downpour and finishes by a storm," Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing opposition Likud party, told army radio.

"Under my government, there will no longer be downpours or storms and there will no longer be arms smuggling, especially rockets that can one day reach Tel Aviv," Agence France-Presse quoted the former premier as saying.

Meanwhile, pollsters say a record 20 percent of voters remain undecided, and the top candidates were doing their utmost to swing them to their camps yesterday. Most surveys predict that Likud and other right-wing parties will win the most votes and that 59-year-old Bibi, as Netanyahu is widely known, will be the best placed to form a coalition government. The poll's biggest spoiler is expected to be Avigdor Lieberman, whose ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu is due to become the third-largest in parliament, crowning the tough-talking Soviet immigrant as the new kingmaker in the complex rough-and-tumble world of Israeli politics.

The 50-year-old immigrant from then Soviet Moldova has built his reputation on vitriolic diatribes against Israeli Arabs that have provoked charges of racism and fascism, and made "No Citizenship Without Loyalty" a main campaign theme of the poll.

His number two said yesterday that the party would join "a national government that will reject the roadmap as well as all negotiations on a withdrawal from the Golan Heights." FMTzipi Livni, the leader of Kadima that has headed the government for the last three years, distanced herself from outgoing Prime Minis ter Ehud Olmert.