Tight security on Israel election eve

Israel began tightening security a day before its crucial election, as acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert explained his plan to withdraw unilaterally from large parts of the West Bank, and opponents attacked his idea and his party.

There was to be no official campaigning today, the last day before the election, and security forces were stepping up their efforts to stop what they said was an increasing number of warnings of Palestinian attacks.

A poll for Channel 10 TV and the Haaretz daily released last evening showed Olmert’s Kadima with 36 seats of the 120 in the parliament, the hawkish Likud 14 and the moderate Labour 18.

Pollster Camil Fuchs said the survey questioned 800 voters with a margin of error of less than three percentage points. He said 22% remained undecided, but most of their votes were apportioned among the parties through follow-up questions.

Police decided to close the hotly disputed holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem to visitors today. The site, where the Al Aqsa Mosque compound is built atop the ruins of the biblical Jewish Temples, is a magnet for extremists on all sides.

Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said only Muslim worshippers would be allowed into the site today. He said police reinforcements would be posted at the site and around the Old City “to prevent any attempted provocation.”

In the past, Jewish extremists have attempted to storm the site to draw attention to their claim that only Jews should be sovereign there. Though Israel captured the area in 1967, it quickly turned over daily control to the Supreme Muslim Council.

Israeli forces maintained a closure on the West Bank and Gaza, banning Palestinians from entering the country. The closure was first imposed before a Jewish holiday two weeks ago and has idled thousands of Palestinian workers.

The disputed Jerusalem site is symbolic of the main campaign issue. Olmert drew battle lines with his plan for a unilateral withdrawal from large parts of the West Bank if there are no peace talks with the Palestinians.

Olmert’s plan, which he calls “consolidation,” breathed life into a campaign that has been sleepy despite political earthquakes – the exit of Ariel Sharon, felled by a stroke on January 4 and still in a coma, and Kadima taking a wide lead, the first time a centrist party has tasted success in a nation traditionally split along hawkish and dovish lines over policy toward the Palestinians.

Olmert proposes completing the barrier between Israel and the West Bank that has been under construction for more than four years, incorporating main settlement blocs on the ”Israeli” side and moving settlers outside the barrier into the blocs.

Olmert said he would try to build a consensus in the fractious Israeli public to back his plan. Settlers, hawkish supporters and most Orthodox Jews hotly opposed Sharon’s unilateral pullout from Gaza last summer, forcing Sharon to reshuffle his Cabinet, leave Likud and create Kadima.

So far there is no sign of moderation among opponents of unilateral Israeli pullbacks. Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel Radio that Olmert’s plan would only bring Hamas closer to Israel. “These borders that our political rivals are proposing will not be defensible,” Netanyahu said. “No one will agree to them.”

Up to now the US and Europe have opposed Israeli settlements in the West Bank and have called for borders to be fixed through negotiations, not unilateral action, but Olmert remained hopeful.

“I have a basis to believe that there is great openness in the US and in other places to listen to these positions and also to seriously discuss them,” Olmert told Israel Radio yesterday in the latest of a series of pre-election appearances in local news media. Olmert took over Kadima from Sharon.

Incoming Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh blamed Israeli occupation for the violence, but added, “We don’t seek a whirlpool of blood in this region.” He said Hamas wants to end the conflict with Israel.

Labour leader Amir Peretz yesterday lashed out at Kadima, though the two parties are seen most likely to serve together in a coalition government. Kadima “gave legitimacy to all the most negative trends that can occur in a democracy,” Peretz said, pointing to the candidates’ history of cronyism and charges of corruption.