"It's a disenchantment with two utopias: with the left-wing utopia of peace and harmony, and with the right-wing utopia of greater Israel by blood and fire," says Yaron Ezrahi, a political science professor at Hebrew University.

"Disengagement was seen as the middle compromise. It takes an element of the right and the left. The element of the right is pessimism about the ability of the Palestinians to sign an agreement. The element of the left is willingness to divide the land. And the disengagement is the perfect synthesis of this," Mr. Ezrahi adds.

In the final surveys taken before Tuesday's balloting, Labor and Likud, the two dominant rivals of the last three decades, are a distant second and third. Unscathed by the threat of Hamas or by Israel's yawning social gap, Kadima ends the campaign fighting primarily voter apathy.

And yet, it is still uncertain whether the urge for a one-sided divorce from the Palestinians can meld into a philosophy that will hold together the political center that gravitated around Mr. Sharon and Kadima before Sharon suffering a massive stroke two months ago.

Newspaper columns describing the vote as a "fateful" decision have made little impression on prospective voters. Opinion polls predict that voter turnout will be weak. In previous elections, the highways would be littered with political banners and bumper stickers, but the public landscape has been relatively clean.

"Most Israelis are tired of the big decision. It is as if they're saying to the politicians do your thing and leave me alone," says Tom Segev, an Israeli historian and journalist. "This used to be a very deeply divided society. For 40 years, we have been debating about the future of the territories, and people now feel that question has been decided."

Warning that the occupation of land conquered in 1967 is a moral albatross for Israel, Israeli doves have traditionally backed negotiations with the Palestinians as a way of trading back land for a peace deal. The answer from the right wing had been to expand Jewish settlements across the West Bank, while dismissing Palestinian peace initiatives as disingenuous.

It was a debate nourished with the ideological fervor of the generation that grew up at the time of Israel's independence and came of age during the 1967 and 1973 wars. But in the subsequent decades, as Israeli society gradually opened up to the West, it became less focused on the old ideological debates.

"That's a deep change in priorities. People are much less political today," Segev says. "They have found other values of life. We are developing normal attitudes, a normal set of priorities. We are growing out of our childhood."

Embraced by an Israeli prime minister nicknamed "bulldozer," unilateralism has become the foreign policy for Israelis who are impatient for a resumption of peace negotiations and realize that Israel's military has no fail-safe answer to suicide bombers.

"It's much more than a policy, it's a paradigm," says Dan Schueftan, the deputy director of the National Security Studies Center at University of Haifa and a proponent of the strategy.

"Once Israelis realized that the option of peace wasn't there, that you won't get a settlement in return for withdrawal, there is a motivation to withdraw unilaterally, and there is no motivation to consider the Palestinians when we set our borders," he says. "The idea that we will permanently sit there and wait for things to improve is something that Israelis no longer believe."

Sharon conceived of Kadima as the political home of the new pragmatism after despairing of Likud. When Sharon fell into a coma in January, many predicted the party's demise. But when Ehud Olmert emerged from Sharon's shadow two weeks ago to promise a new West Bank withdrawal, it was a sign that the party could go it alone.

"The Kadima party's goal is to determine the borders of Israel. This was never the goal of either the right or the left," says Tzachi Hanegbi, a Kadima member who defected from Likud.

"If you asked me if Kadima would stay powerful after Sharon stepped down the way he did, I would have said 'no way.' It proved that people's support was not only personal. People want hope. Kadima offers hope that is not an illusion, but more reasonable, limited, and cautious."

But even as Kadima seems headed for an unprecedented political feat, critics warn that the standard-bearer of unilateralism is little more than a grab bag of opportunist politicians that will ultimately unravel.

"Kadima's cover looks nice. They've put everything in the cake. And everyone believes it will be good," says Avshalom Vilan, a founder of "Peace Now" and a candidate of the ultra-dovish Meretz party who hopes to join Kadima's coalition. "Politics is not a cake. In the long run, the cake that you can have everything in can't work."

The Jewish Front, headed by Baruch Marzel, is an offshoot of the Kach group, whose principles Israel's Supreme Court said incited racism.

Kach was outlawed by both the Israeli and US governments in 1994.

The Jewish Front advocates the forced expulsion of Arabs from "the land of Israel".

According to Beny Elyaho, a co-founder of the party, the expulsion of non-Jews would resolve all of Israel's political, economic and social problems.

"Our party calls for cleansing the region extending from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean from the goyim (non-Jews) and thus guaranteeing a Jewish majority of no less than 90% throughout the land of Israel," he was quoted as saying during a party meeting in West Jerusalem last year.

Marzel has called parties willing to negotiate with the Palestinians "traitors" and "criminals" and says the Israeli military should assassinate Uri Avnery, leader of the Gush Shalom peace activist movement.

Arab emigration

Another party, Herut, headed by Michael Kleiner, advocates legislation that would offer Palestinians and other non-Jewish citizens of Israel "financial inducements" to emigrate to the Arab world and elsewhere

Herut, meaning freedom in Hebrew, maintains the vision of Eretz Yisrael Hashlema (or Greater Israel) encompassing all mandatory Palestine where non-Jews are accorded inferior or no rights by virtue of being non-Jewish.

The party also views nearly all of Jordan as part of Israel which "one day" could be "re-incorporated into Israel".

According to the party platform, Herut stands for increasing the "Jewish bond" with the Temple Mount, a euphemism for demolishing al-Aqsa mosque and other Muslim holy places in Jerusalem.

The National Union (Haichud Haleumi) party, comprised of the Settler Party, the Mifdal, and other Jewish groups, also calls for the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Arab countries and elsewhere.

No Palestinian state

The party headed by Benjamin Elon, a former Israeli cabinet minister, also opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.

"The National Union pledges that another political entity will not rise between Jordan and the sea. The funds which were being transferred to the Palestinian Authority by the government, will henceforth be used for reparations for the damage Israel has suffered during the period of terror," the party's website says.

It advocates the creation of a Talmudic Jewish kingdom whereby non-Jews in general, and Palestinians in particular, are treated as "water carriers and wood hewers" in the service of Jews.

Yisrael Beitenu (Israel is Our Home), headed by Russian immigrant Avigdor Lieberman, is mainly a "Russian party" since most of its support come from Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants who moved to Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Lieberman advocates "population transfer" of Israel's Arab citizens. And according to the Israeli daily Haaretz, he also calls for ignoring the Palestinian Authority and drawing Israel's final borders with Egypt, Jordan and the road map quartet of the UN, the US, the EU and Russia.

Arab MPs in the Knesset have accused Lieberman of racism for seeking to expel Israeli Arabs, some of whom he has called extremist elements.

Likud

Likud, headed by Benyamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, has drifted further to the right since Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister who now lies in a coma, left the party to form the Kadima (Forward) party in November 2005.

Likud has called for the annexation of the bulk of the West Bank (at least 50% of the occupied Palestinian territories) and granting Palestinians a limited autonomy which could be allowed to evolve into a mini-state in the future.

According to its campaign website, Likud also opposes relinquishing control of the Golan Heights to Syria and firmly opposes Kadima's policies of unilateral withdrawals.

Racism law

Israeli law states that no one can stand for elections to the Knesset if his goal or actions "expressly or by implication", includes "incitement to racism".

But Fawaz Kamal, the head of the Israeli government press office, told Aljazeera:

"The judicial system in Israel saw that there was no legal grounds for outlawing these parties or barring them from participating in the elections as long as they don't include their purported racist attitudes and views in their respective platforms."

Talab al-Sani'e, a Knesset member and lawyer, said: "the Israeli High Court has effectively ignored this law and decided to let the people (voters) decide".

"Only in extreme cases, such as in the case of the Kahana party, which openly called for the expulsion of the Arabs, did the court decide to ban that party."

However, Kamal and al-Sani'e could not explain why other parties such as the Jewish Front, which also advocate the forced expulsion of Arabs, have been allowed to run.

Kadima

Kadima, led by Ehud Olmert, the acting prime minister and staunch Sharon ally, stands at odds with Likud and other right wing parties.

It calls for the continuation of the peace process with the Palestinians but simultaneously "continuing to wage an unremitting war against terrorism".

Olmert's Kadima looks set to win
a third of the Knesset seats
It calls for a determination of Israel's permanent borders based on a peace deal and also says a solid Jewish majority is crucial to the future security of Israel.

The Labour party, led by Amir Peretz, has various approaches to the peace process, with some members calling for all out war against "terrorist" organisations and others saying Israeli tactics have been heavy handed.

Labour believes continuing the peace process is crucial and in recent days Peretz announced his platform to compensate settlers willing to leave West Bank settlements prior to any withdrawal.

End occupation

There are also parties such as Meretz, which calls for an end to occupation and a permanent peace deal based on the 1967 borders.

Meretz is headed by Yossi Beilin, a former economy and planning minister and a current member of parliament.

"Today, [slain prime minister Yitzhak] Rabin's legacy is clearer than ever: Reaching peace requires a historic compromise. And only a historic compromise will ensure the full equality of Israel's citizens, and thus the fulfilment of the Zionist dream," Beilin says in his party's charter.

He calls for a two-state solution with two capitals in Jerusalem. In 2003, his party won six seats.

Kadima leading

According to an Israeli army poll, Kadima is likely to win over 42 seats (out of 120 seats making up the Israeli Knesset), with Likud gaining some 15-16 seats, and Labour some 14 seats.

Right wing and religious parties could muster as many as 55 seats, only 6 seats short of an absolute majority.

Ira Sharkansky, a professor in Hebrew University's political science department, told Aljazeera.net the presence of so many right wing and religious parties hinders the democratic process.

He said "this is the way it is in Israel", adding that it is very difficult for the judicial system in Israel to "outlaw a political party".

"They allowed these parties just as they allowed an Islamic party to run," said Sharkansky.

Israeli-Arab parties

There are four Israeli Arab parties running in the upcoming elections - Hadash, Balad, Movement for Arab Renewal, and the United Arab List, run by Shaikh Ibrahim Sarsur.

All four parties call for the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions on Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and more rights for Israeli Arabs.

They also advocate East Jerusalem as a future capital of the Palestinian state.

Current Arab Knesset member and leader of Movement for Arab Renewal, Ahmed Teibi, who is contesting the elections, believes the growth of "racist right-wing factions" is a sign of how Israeli society is leaning.

"The mushrooming of these racist right-wing factions is an honest and representative reflection of Israeli Jewish society. It is a society that is increasingly racist, bigoted and chauvinistic.

"How can we think otherwise when a majority of Jews here advocate the expulsion of non-Jewish citizens in Israel?"

In the early days of the campaign for tomorrow's general election in Israel, the once mighty Likud party launched an advertisement playing on the name of its new but dominant rival - Kadima.

Kadima is Hebrew for "Forward". The advert showed the face of its leader and acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, alongside what was meant as a derisive declaration: "Forward to the 1967 borders!"

It was an attempt to portray Kadima as a danger to Israel with its plan to pull out of large parts of the occupied West Bank, and Mr Olmert as a coward for retreating from the dream of a greater Israel in the face of an advancing Palestinian Islamic group, Hamas.

Likud was forced to pull the advert after many voters thought it was pro-Kadima, agreeing with what they saw as a positive message: Don't talk to the Palestinians; separate from them.

Opinion polls say that Kadima, the party created by Ariel Sharon only four months ago, will crush Likud, which he took to power in 2001 with promises to break the Palestinians.

Mr Sharon - still in a coma after suffering a stroke earlier this year - tore Likud apart by pulling Jewish settlers out of Gaza. If the polls are right, Kadima will emerge with about 36 seats in the 120-seat Knesset (parliament). Labour, its likely coalition partner, will take around 20 seats. Likud is trailing badly with only about 15.

Likud's leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, has described tomorrow's ballot as a referendum on Kadima's plans. Mr Olmert is, indeed, seeking a mandate for his proposal to draw Israel's final borders within four years by moving tens of thousands of settlers from some parts of the West Bank while annexing the larger colonies that are home to hundreds of thousands of other settlers.

He intends to use the vast West Bank barrier to mark out the border, and he plans to decide its final route by talking to the Americans but not the Palestinians."We want to set the permanent borders of Israel, and to do so we must separate from the Palestinians," he told Israel radio yesterday. "In order to separate from the Palestinians, we must define for ourselves our red lines."

Mr Netanyahu has tried hard to portray Kadima's policy as surrendering territory to Hamas without getting anything in return. He favours the continued use of force to hold on to all that Israel now controls.

However, Lior Chorev, a leading Kadima campaign strategist, said his party's lead was built on a belief among large numbers of Israelis that while the occupation could not go on, there was, as Mr Sharon frequently said, "no partner for peace" on the other side. It is a view strengthened by Hamas's victory in the recent Palestinian election - leaving only "unilateral separation".

"Most Israelis are not looking for peace with Palestinians. They are looking for quiet, for security, and they want the fence to be high enough so that they don't have to see them any longer," Mr Chorev said.

Mr Sharon founded Kadima in November as a vehicle to continue his unilateral strategy in the face of debilitating hostility within Likud. At the time, the new party was widely viewed as a one-man, one-theme show. After Mr Sharon's stroke in January, his opponents in Likud quietly rejoiced at what they saw as the new party's burial.

They doubted that Mr Olmert - who does not carry the same political clout as the maverick general he succeeded - could provide leadership over what they saw as a nationally divisive issue. But Mr Sharon had tapped into a deep desire among many Israelis to be rid of the Palestinians, and the polls show that most voters want to see his strategy carried through by Kadima.

Mr Netanyahu accuses Kadima of moving far to the left of Mr Sharon. The Likud leader says he would move the barrier deeper inside the West Bank, to contain Palestinian urban areas in cantons and retain control of most of the rest of the occupied territory.

"When we left Gaza without getting anything in return, this was interpreted as a flight from terror," he said. "If we get out to the 1967 lines, it will not work. I do not want to go back into Palestinian cities, but I do not want to give land we hold to terrorists."

He concedes that the bulk of Israeli public opinion is against him, adding: "I don't know when the reality will bring the wake-up call, but it will come."

Snapping at Likud's heels is the far-right Yisrael Beitenu which advocates redrawing the borders to strip 500,000 Arab Israelis of their citizenship and place them inside a Palestinian state in a "swap" for the major settlements. Its leader, Avigdor Lieberman, has capitalised on a deep suspicion of Mr Netanyahu among some on the right owing to his hesitation to quit the government after the removal of settlers from Gaza.

Doubts about Labour

The haemorrhage of support to Kadima and Yisrael Beitenu has kept Likud behind the Labour party, led by a former trade union leader, Amir Peretz, who has worked hard to put the economy and growing poverty on the election agenda. Polls show that large numbers of voters share his criticism of welfare cuts and the government's monetarist policies, but these remain secondary issues, and many people lack confidence in Mr Peretz's ability to handle security.

The Labour leader has shifted his position several times on the future of the occupied territories, but recently he said he favoured negotiation over unilateral measures. "In contrast to Olmert, we do not intend to waive the negotiations stage," he said. "A unilateral step on the West Bank will not achieve international support, since there won't be a return to the 1967 borders and the world will view it as an attempt to set boundaries unilaterally."

But Gideon Levy, a commentator for the newspaper Ha'aretz, described the consensus among Israeli voters after decades of controlling Palestinian lives as a desire to make them go away. "Nobody is speaking about peace with them - nobody really wants it. Only one ambition unites everyone - to get rid of them, one way or another," he wrote.

"An absolute majority of the MPs [in the next parliament] will hold a position based on a lie: that Israel does not have a partner for peace ... A massive majority will cast its vote for the racist arrangement that ignores the Palestinians, as proposed by Kadima, Likud and, to a large extent, Labour. None of them tried to propose a just peace."

The plan combines security and transportation solutions along 140 kms (out of 2,000 km of roads in the West Bank) spread out on 34 roads. According to the military source, the plan is based on having separate levels of traffic. Six of the 12 interchanges planned for this purpose have already been built. They enable Israeli passengers to travel through the upper highways "without noticing the Palestinian traffic underneath, while the Palestinian traffic remains unhindered," the source said.

A military source told Haaretz that "it is clear to us that roadblocks make everyday life very difficult, so the idea came up to create a situation in which in 80 percent of the roads Palestinians would be able to travel without encountering a permanent roadblock, and to get from Dahariya to Jenin in a reasonable amount of time."

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Under present conditions, "The roadblocks in the West Bank are an operational need because Palestinians are transporting terror between one sector and the other," the source said.

According to the source, 518 terrorists were apprehended in roadblocks in 2005.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority, the IDF and Palestinian local councils are working on reconditioning, upgrading and paving roads in the West Bank as a solution for traffic limitations created by IDF roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank, and the redirection of Palestinian vehicles to secondary roads linking between villages.

The three bodies are working without any coordination between them, but the PA and the local authorities are not allowed to pave roads without an Israeli authorization for work carried out outside of Area A.

During the past few months the IDF has formulated a new plan to create a system of roads for continuous Palestinian traffic, in order to improve the Palestinians' quality of life, according to military sources. According to Palestinian sources, the IDF has not formally reported the plan to the PA.

In contrast to the plan submitted by the security establishment to the World Bank and donor states 18 months ago, which called for the creation of two separate transportation systems in the West Bank, one for Israelis and for Palestinians, the current plan does not include roads in which Palestinian traffic is banned. According to the sources, in the 20 percent of West Bank roads used by Israelis, Palestinian traffic would also be allowed.

The plan to upgrade and pave roads for Palestinians, which has not been approved in its entirety yet, includes three types of roads: parallel roads that are alternatives for routes used by Israeli traffic; roads to bypass the separation fence; and roads that will improve the quality of Palestinian transportation. The plan was drafted by the department dealing with strategic planning in the Central Command, headed by Colonel Danny Tirza (Res.).

According to the military source, the plan is not new and is based in a plan from 1997 for paving roads for Israeli traffic, which will not cross through Area B. But now, for the first time, the security establishment is preparing and financing a traffic system for Palestinians too.

Seven roads and access roads have been reconditioned and paved in the framework of the separation fence project, to replace direct roads cut by the fence and another five roads are being built. Another 11 roads are planned to be reconditioned or paved in the framework of the separation fence and the remaining 11 planned roads are not in the framework of the security fence project. Some of the planned or paved roads are meant to redirect Palestinian traffic away from the center of crowded villages and to create a system of interregional roads, the source said.

According to the military sources, it was not the international objection to the previous plan of two separate traffic systems that brought upon the new plan, but rather a dispute between two security perceptions. According to the winning perception, it is safer to enable Palestinian vehicles to travel on the roads used by Israelis.

Washington, DC - 1991 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award winner, Palestinian human rights lawyer Raji Sourani, has been stuck in Gaza despite plans to meet numerous U.S. officials from March 24th -30th. The United States Department of State has not granted Sourani a travel visa to the US though he has confirmed meetings with high-ranking officials at the Department of State, the National Security Council, an advisor to President Bush, The International Republican Institute, and The Heritage Foundation. In a letter addressed to Sourani, the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem required him "to obtain an Israeli police certificate" before his application could move further.

"International law is not a potluck dinner, the U.S. can't simply pick and choose when to apply it and when to ignore it," said Todd Howland, Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights whose organization was facilitating Sourani's visit. Howland went on to say, "on one hand the US government asks a Palestinian wanting to visit the U.S. to obtain a police certificate from Israel, a country that international law holds is illegally occupying its territory. On the other hand, the U.S. government does not address the fact that Israel has obligations, regardless of the legitimacy of the occupation, to the health and welfare of those living in Gaza based on the Fourth Geneva Convention - obligations its present closure of the border crossings contradict."

UN Security Council Resolution 242 (S/RES/242), unanimously adopted on 22 November 1967 by all members of the Security Council, including the US, called for the "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict." "Forcing a Palestinian to obtain a police clearance from an occupier who was instructed to withdraw over 35 years ago is absurd," added Howland.

Timothy Smith, Office Manager for desk coordinating the multi-agency review process for visas at the Department of State (202-663-1246; smithtw@state.gov), can be contacted to for an explanation of how it is possible for the Department of State to request Mr. Sourani to obtain a police clearance from Israel, even though international law considers the Israeli occupation illegal and therefore its actions related to Palestinians de jure should be questioned.

Todd Howland, Director of the Center for Human of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial can be contacted to discuss the details of Mr. Sourani's case and abuse of discretion by US government officials by making such a request of Mr. Sourani and other Palestinians. Please call Sushetha Gopallawa 202-463-7575 ext 270 to contact Howland.