JERUSALEM -- There have been more surprises and there is more at stake in this year's campaign for a new Israeli parliament and national leader than in any other contest in recent memory here, commentators say.
Yet former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, a member of the new Kadima party and, at 82, a veteran of six decades of this country's often divisive, embittering political contests, was at a loss last week to explain why the campaign that ends Tuesday has remained so calm, even dull.
"We don't have a drama," Peres said.
Voters' seeming indifference might be because most of the campaign has taken place in winter, keeping people indoors and away from party rallies. They might have stayed away for security reasons. Or maybe, he said, the problem is that this election, unlike almost any other in Israel's history, just lacks tension.
Whatever the public mood, Israelis who do go to the polls will be making historic choices.
"It is probably the election where Israelis will make the most dramatic decision about the future of the nation," says Ari Shavit, one of Israel's most respected political commentators and journalists. It is, he said, "a life-or-death decision."
Winners will have their hands full deciding how to deal with a Palestinian Authority dominated by the militant Islamic party Hamas, how to help Israel's poor, how best to respond to Iran's possible nuclear threat and, if that were not enough, how to quell an outbreak of bird flu in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Most important, however, this election is asking voters how they envision Israel's permanent borders and the country's relationship with the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Yet the findings of public opinion polls have been stable for nearly three months, showing Kadima, led by Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, commanding a nearly a 2-to-1 lead over its closest political rival, Peres' old Labor Party. There have been no public debates between leaders of the major parties, and few campaign bumper stickers and posters. Voters appear so complacent that some analysts predict this election will bring the lowest voter turnout in Israel's history.
