He tried to stage a confrontation by trying to close Orient House, the Palestinian headquarters in Jerusalem, but was stopped by the High Court.He was a man of many enemies and at times he almost revelled in this Again and again he attacked the media They paid him back with vitriolic abuse Last night they were reacting with glee to his fall. Amnon Abromovich, a distinguished television analyst, said: “Netanyahu will become a footnote in Israeli history who will go down as perhaps the only person who resigned 28 minutes after the television exit polls were published.”He fell because once Israeli voters could no longer be rallied against the external threat of the Palestinians, they noticed Mr Netanyahu’s failings as a leader. The ethnic and religious parties, which made up his coalition, began to split. The Russians were at daggers drawn with Shas, the party of the ultra- orthodox Sephardic voters. One came from a secular, the other from a religious culture.Mr Netanyahu also faced covert but powerful enemies.

The Israeli establishment saw him as an irresponsible demagogue. Mr Barak was opportunely cleared of allegations that, as chief of staff, he had abandoned soldiers wounded in a training accident. Aryeh Deri, the leader of Shas and ally of Mr Netanyahu, was sentenced to four years’ jail for accepting bribes after a court case that had dragged on for nine years. In fact, Mr Netanyahu was more used to threatening violence than actually using, but he was judged by his words.In the end he could rely on only the ultra-orthodox when the polls opened. “We have been up since 7am bringing old people to vote in the election,” said Esri Erlanger, an ultra- orthodox student “Don’t believe the polls It will be a close election. Unfortunately, unlike the last election,the left is united and the right divided.” He was right and there were already signs of anti-clerical reaction.In the suburb of Neve Ya’akov, inhabited mainly by Russian and Moroccan Jews, Valentina from Minsk in Belorussia was voting for an extreme right- wing Russian party. But she said she would also support Mr Barak, because “Netanyahu is too close to the ultra-orthodox”.Israeli elections have always been hard fought and vitriolic because they do more than change one party or one government for another.

They are part of a cultural war between different Israeli communities This was never truer than in the 1999 election. The secular centrist parties did well, but Shas also made spectacular gains, taking much of Likud’s own Sephardic voters.. IN THE last weeks of the election campaign, Ehud Barak, leader of the Labour party, has spent much of his time keeping his mouth shut while Benjamin Netanyahu, his opponent, self-destructed. Mr Barak remains a private, unknowable character though the facts of his career are well documented Most of it was spent in the Israeli army. Born in Mishmar Hasharon kibbutz, south of Haifa, in 1942, he joined the army in 1959 and spent the next 35 years there.
His military career prospered. He led a reconnaissance group in the 1967 war and a tank battalion in Sinai in 1973. He led an attack – heavily publicised during the election campaign – to free hostages from a hijacked aircraft and became a general at the age of 37.In Israel there is a well-beaten establishment career path, which leads from the kibbutz to the army high command and then into Labour party.As Israeli chief of staff in the early Nineties, Mr Barak was close to Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister, who groomed him as the next party leader.It all happened quicker than anybody could have expected.

Mr Rabin was assassinated in 1995 just after Mr Barak joined his cabinet. The next year Labour lost the election, and with its other leaders discredited, Mr Barak took over.Despite early flounderings, Mr Barak has a well-organised mind, is intensely competitive and has good nerves But he also had a lot of luck. Mr Netanyahu’s premiership was always a balancing act between different factions of the right and between ethnic and religious parties. From the end of last year it began to fall apart.Mr Barak is a self-confident, even arrogant man, but is also shy He presents himself as a mixture of macho and intellectual. He looks set to enjoy a long honeymoon period as prime minister since most Israelis, all Palestinians and every government in the world will be glad to see the back of Mr Netanyahu.. IT WAS a bad day for the far right It won only nine seats in the 120-seat Knesset. The victors in the election were the centre parties and Shas, the party of the Sephardi ultra- orthodox, whose leader has been sentenced to four years in prison for accepting bribes.