Israel welcomes new era as a boost for ME peace

National Democratic Institute election observers talk with a voter (L) as polls opened in Azariya on the outskirts of Jerusalem yesterday. (Left to right) Unidentified voter, former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt, former US president Jimmy Carter, and an interpreter. PHOTO: AFP

"The prime minister intends to meet the elected Palestinian president as soon as possible," a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told AFP.

The source in Sharon's office stopped short of referring to Mahmud Abbas, but the head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation is the overwhelming favourite to win Sunday's vote and replace Yasser Arafat who died two months ago.

The source said such a meeting "would focus on security issues and security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority" ahead of Israel's withdrawal form the Gaza Strip scheduled for this year.

Sharon, who long boycotted Arafat, has taken care not to be seen as endorsing Abbas but has said recently he sees the coming year as an "opportunity for an historic breakthrough in relations between us and the Palestinians".

The peace process has been left in tatters by more than four years of deadly Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Israeli newspaper commentators from across the political spectrum voiced optimism over the election and the likely victory of the dovish Abbas.

"Two new governments will be established within the next few days, one in Jerusalem, one in Ramallah. The entire world is looking to these governments, and especially to their leaders. Great hopes, enormous dangers, heavy storms await them," Ben Caspit wrote in an editorial for the Maariv daily.

Caspit said both Abbas and Sharon "have their backs to the wall".

"The opposition is pressuring them, the extremists are threatening. Nevertheless, Sharon's situation is much better. He has a state, he has an army, he has a public."

In an analysis entitled "An Optimist in a Pessimistic World" in the country's top-selling daily Yediot Aharonot, Roni Shaked also welcomed Abbas's rise.

"Abu Mazen, who is expected to be elected the Palestinian president today, is an optimistic man with good intentions," he said.

He wants to end terrorism, to rehabilitate the economy and to pull his people out of the deep mud into which they have sunk these past four and a half years. He even believes that he will be able to get along with Sharon," he wrote.

In the more left-leaning Haaretz daily, Zvi Barel also took heart in Abbas's likely accession to power, but warned the Israeli government should do its utmost to support his efforts.

"This turn allows (Palestinians) to say, loudly, that the armed intifada has failed, that the former leadership, that of Arafat, did not succeed in leading them to a solution," he said in an editorial.