Top candidates for prime minister
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Hawkish former prime minister vows to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank and says a peace accord with the Palestinians is impossible now. He argues Israel should try to boost the Palestinian economy while continuing its military occupation indefinitely.
TZIPI LIVNI: Leader of the governing centrist Kadima Party, she is the foreign minister and has overseen a year of negotiations with the Palestinians that showed little visible progress on the ground. She was one of the architects of Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
EHUD BARAK: Defense minister in the outgoing government, the Labor Party chief hopes to reclaim the premiership he briefly held a decade ago, campaigning on an image burnished by last month’s fighting in Gaza.
AVIGDOR LIEBERMAN: An immigrant from Moldova, Lieberman has centered his platform on demanding that Arab citizens sign an oath of loyalty or lose their right to vote or be elected. Perhaps his most polarizing policy is to redraw Israel’s borders, pushing areas with heavy concentrations of Arabs outside the country and under Palestinian jurisdiction.
