ONE NATION is going to the polls today, but the future of two peoples is at stake. The four million is eligible to cast ballots for a new minister and a new Knesset today will determine the course their country takes at arguably the most crucial juncture in its 48 year history.

But when the polling booths close at 10 p.m. the two million Palestinians of the West Bank, Gaza Strip.

East Jerusalem will await the results with as much interest and trepidation.

Although issues such as immigrant absorption, inflation and government corruptions have featured in the election campaign, the real battle has been fought over the Middle East peace process and, particularly, Israel's phased land for peace accords with the Palestinians.

If Benjamin Netanyahu, the 46 year old Likud challenger an eloquent spokesman but an unproven politician is elected prime minister, it will be because a majority of Israelis have rejected those accords as badly formulated, naive, overly generous, or just plain dangerous.

If 72 year old Prime Minister Shimon Peres a five decade political veteran who was running the Defence Ministry when Mr Netanyahu was learning to walk is returned for another four year term, it will be because a majority of Israelis have been won over to the peace process Mr Peres himself orchestrated.

They will be convinced that, for all their flaws, the accords with the Palestinians really do offer hope for security through peace, a relinquishing of territory in exchange for calm on the narrowed borders.

Given the difficulties in assessing the turnout among key blocs of voters including the Arabs, ultra Orthodox Jews and Russian immigrants who together constitute about a third of the electorate the election result is impossible to predict with any confidence. But if Mr Netanyahu prevails and scares Israelis not voting for him, it will be the most vile and violent of extremists on both sides who will have been responsible.

On the Israeli side, the personification of vile extremism is Yigal Amir, the Orthodox right wing law student who created his own repugnant niche in Israeli legal history by becoming the first citizen jailed for life for murdering his prime minister.

Acting on his perverted interpretation of Jewish religious law, Amir shot dead Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv last November in the hope of halting the Israeli pullout from the West Bank.

Initially, it seemed his plan had backfired the assassination prompted a massive swing of Israeli public support behind the peace process. But with the two candidates neck and neck, the peace camp badly misses Mr Rabin, the former army chief of staff with more credibility than any other Israeli when it came to explaining how security would be boosted, not harmed, by territorial compromise with the Palestinians.

Mr Amir will be delighted to see Mr Netanyahu voted into power today. The Likud leader has grudgingly accepted some of the new realities in the West Bank but indicates he will take the process no further intending to cancel the scheduled imminent Israeli army pullout from Hebron, and to restrict Palestinian self rule to its limited status, with independent statehood unthinkable.

Mr Amir's act of extremism was in eliminating the man at the head of the peace process. The extremists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad the Palestinian radical groups struck at the heart of Israel. Four suicide bombings in late February and early March destroyed much of the post Rabin, pro-peace sympathy, and so shattered Mr Peres's lead in the opinion polls. There have been no sudden bombings for three months but memories here are not short.

And in case people had forgotten the gruesome scenes of blood red body parts strewn across the pave eat after each bus bombing, Mr Netanyahu has used his campaign advertisements to remind them. Neglecting to mention that even Israel's massive military infrastructure found no answer to the suicide bombers when Israel controlled the territories, he has laid the blame for the blasts at Yasser Arafat's door.

Only a foolish dreamer like Mr Peres, he has been telling viewers each night, would he so unrealistic as to expect Mr Arafat to stop the bombers, so unworldly as to entrust an unreformed terrorist like Mr Arafat with the security of Israel's men, women and children as they travel around the country.

Hamas has everything to gain from a Netanyahu victory. With prime minister Netanyahu installed in office, halting the Palestinian accords, Hamas would ensure the rapid resumption of the Intifada uprising.

Mr Arafat, the Palestinian embodiment of the peace process, would he utterly discredited, and would have to endorse a new uprising or risk a speedy fall from power. Hamas's popularity would surge, its supporters hammering home the impossibility of reconciliation with the Israelis. A triumph for aggression and extremisms.

MR ARAFAT is plainly worried by the prospect of a Netanyahu win. For public consumption, he says only that "the important thing is for the winner to believe in peace". Privately, he has been telling colleagues of his fears of a Netanyahu government that would include men such as the former defence minister Ariel Sharon.

Mr Netanyahu has indicated that he might he prepared to meet and negotiate with Mr Arafat Mr Sharon, by contrast, describes the Palestinian leader as the man with "more Jewish blood on his hands than anyone since the Nazis", and wants him put on trial for war crimes.

Today, Israelis are choosing between two men with conflicting views on the direction of history. Mr Netanyahu argues that nothing has really changed in the Middle East that the Arab desire to destroy Israel remains as strong as ever.

Mr Peres counters that the Arabs are just the same as the Jews, desiring some land to call their own and the chance to quietly live out their lives on it. Mr Netanyahu preaches security through expanded territory and force. Mr Peres sees security through reconciliation and common interest.

In this campaign, Mr Netanyahu has effectively played on Israelis' fears. Has Mr Peres done enough to capture their hopes?