By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, May 18, 1999; Page A01

JERUSALEM, May 18 (Tuesday)—Ehud Barak, a much-decorated retired general who has pledged to revive the Middle East peace process, swept to a landslide victory in Israeli national elections Monday over Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud party.

Although voters were squarely behind Barak, separate results for the Knesset, Israel's parliament, underscored the growing social gulf between secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews. Both camps dramatically increased their strength in the legislature, and each has insisted it will not sit in a government with the other. That bitter division could complicate Barak's attempts to form a coalition government and run the country effectively.

Barak, 57, the former military chief of staff and a renowned commando leader, had such a large lead on Netanyahu -- about 56 percent to 44 percent -- that Netanyahu conceded defeat a half-hour after the polls closed at 10 p.m. and announced he would resign as Likud chairman. More than 80 percent of the 4.28 million eligible voters cast ballots.

A protege of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Barak has presented himself as heir to the assassinated leader's legacy, vowing to pursue a final peace settlement with the Palestinians, reach agreements with Israel's Arab neighbors and slow the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

About 2:30 a.m. today, a beaming Barak appeared in Tel Aviv with his wife, Nava, Rabin's widow, Leah, and former prime minister Shimon Peres in a room full of supporters who sang, "Ehud, King of Israel!" He made a tight little wave, thanked his partisans, then scolded them for booing Netanyahu. He paid homage to voters who opposed him, issued a call for unity after an exceptionally divisive campaign and vowed to press ahead from a position of strength with the Middle East peace process that Rabin initiated with the Palestinians in the Oslo agreement in 1993.

"I know that if Yitzhak today is looking at us from the sky, he is proud of us, just as we are proud of him, and that he knows that we together will fulfill his legacy," Barak said. He then led his supporters in a solemn rendition of the national anthem, "Tikva," or "Hope."

As the polls closed, tens of thousands of Barak's partisans bearing gigantic posters of Rabin converged in the Tel Aviv square where the prime minister was shot to death in 1995 by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish nationalist. Cheering, weeping, dancing and hugging one another, they paid homage to Rabin, hailed Barak as his spiritual successor and chanted: "Bibi go home!" Bibi is Netanyahu's nickname.

Israelis vote directly for a prime minister and cast a separate vote for a party in the 120-seat Knesset. There was no chance that Barak's party would win an outright majority in the legislature, but with most of the vote counted in the Knesset race, it appeared he could try to form a center-left coalition of mostly secular parties. However, he may try to broaden his government, possibly including Likud. Barak has 45 days to form a new government representing a majority of the Knesset.

"This is a political earthquake," said Peres, who became prime minister upon Rabin's death and was defeated months later by Netanyahu. "As of tomorrow, this is a different Israel."

The election was a repudiation of Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, which in three tumultuous years in power put the brakes on the Middle East peace process, strained relations with Israel's Arab neighbors and the United States and oversaw a deepening of divisions in Israeli society between secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews. It was also a personal repudiation for Netanyahu, 49, whose confrontational style embittered allies and adversaries alike and drove into opposition even those who once formed the upper ranks of his cabinet.

In a brief concession speech, Netanyahu seemed somewhat more relaxed than he had in the waning days of the campaign, during which he launched a series of incendiary attacks on his opponents. Flanked by his wife, Sara, and his foreign minister, Ariel Sharon, he said: "I have a lot more to give to the state of Israel, but now I believe the time has come for me to take a break and be with my family. . . . I therefore announce my intention to resign from my post as leader of the Likud."

Then, glassy-eyed, he handed the podium over to Sharon as some of his supporters chanted, "Death to the Arabs." Sharon reprimanded them.

Some analysts were surprised at the dimensions of Netanyahu's defeat -- Israeli elections traditionally have been very close -- and attributed it to a broad array of his shortcomings in domestic and foreign policy.

"This is a verdict about his three years in office and his problematic leadership, his failure with the peace process and the fact that he ruled or sought to rule by exploiting and broadening the divisions in Israeli society rather than by trying to heal them," said Yossi Alpher, director of the Israel office of the American Jewish Committee. "Israel has never had a prime minister who so blatantly tried to divide Israeli society rather than unite Israeli society, and this is the verdict."

The results suggested that key parts of Netanyahu's core constituency of 1996 had deserted him, especially hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Russia and other former Soviet republics who arrived this decade. Secular to the point of eating pork and in some cases not even Jewish, many of the Russian-speakers were driven away by Netanyahu's embrace of ultra-Orthodox religious parties, whose subsidies and influence in key areas of government grew to unprecedented proportions under his administration. The immigrants, who voted 2-to-1 for Netanyahu in 1996, went solidly for Barak.

As for the Knesset, it was apparent that the deep split between secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews will be mirrored in the legislature. That could pose a dilemma for Barak as he tries to craft a workable coalition. If he forms a government excluding ultra-Orthodox members, as is possible, it could deepen an already profound rift in Israeli politics and society.

"There has never been a prime minister facing such a difficult test -- how to return the country to a single whole," said Daniel Ben Simon, a prominent journalist with the newspaper Haaretz.

The biggest Knesset winner was Israel's largest religious party, Shas, whose ultra-Orthodox voters are mostly first- and second-generation North African immigrants. Shas appeared likely to increase its representation to 17 seats, up from 10 in the outgoing Knesset. Coupled with gains by another ultra-Orthodox party, United Torah Judaism, ultra-Orthodox Jews may control 22 of the Knesset's 120 seats, an unprecedented representation.

Shas celebrated its victory despite the troubles of the party's charismatic leader, Aryeh Deri, who was recently sentenced to four years in prison for taking bribes. "Everybody wanted to crush us . . . [but] God gave us the strength today," said Deri, who is free pending appeal.

Conversely, the other big winner appeared to be a party called Change, whose leader, journalist Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, launched tirades against ultra-Orthodox parties in television ads and interviews that struck many Israelis as verging on antisemitic. Change, which was not represented in the outgoing Knesset, seemed likely to win six seats in the new one.

That, plus an estimated nine seats for the left-wing party Meretz, which has also resisted ultra-Orthodox influence, reflected a surge in sentiment among secular Israelis angry at ultra-Orthodox control of government offices that oversee residency permits, marriage, divorce and other critical areas of daily life.

Unquestionably, the biggest loser of the day was Netanyahu's Likud party -- once the largest in Israel -- which appeared likely to lose about a third of its 32 seats. Party members started blaming Netanyahu several days ago for what they foresaw would be a resounding defeat. Monday, they were practically in mourning. "This is a result that leaves us almost crushed," said Silvan Shalom, Netanyahu's science minister.

Barak's Labor Party also will lose some of its 29 seats but will remain the largest in the Knesset.

As the multitude of Barak supporters celebrated in Rabin Square, the slain leader's widow watched the spectacle on television and pronounced herself satisfied. She had supported Barak fervently and had frequently accused Netanyahu of creating an atmosphere of hatred that made the assassination possible.

"It is really an evening and a moment I have waited for a long time," she said. "We went through three years of really terrible trauma."