Palestinian citizens reacted in muted tones and politicians were more excited about the expectation that the Labour leader, Mr Ehud Barak, will be Israel's next prime minister.
"Ordinary people do not differentiate between the two candidates," Dr Ghassan Khatib, of the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre, said, referring to Mr Barak and the incumbent, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu.
"According to an opinion poll we conducted, 52 per cent of Palestinians believe that there will be no positive improvement under Labour and only 24 per cent said there would. They base their impressions on previous experience with both Labour and Likud.
"However, politicians see a significant difference. They are excited, they see a change coming. They have had enough humiliation and difficulties with the Likud-led government. Their partner in the Oslo accords was Labour and they see better chances for implementation if Labour returns to power.
"However, Barak will implement only the Wye Plantation agreement," Dr Khatib told The Irish Times.
President Clinton brokered the Wye agreement between Mr Netanyahu and the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, last year. It calls for an Israeli withdrawal from only 13 per cent of the West Bank instead of virtually all of the occupied territory which the Palestinians expected to return to their control when they signed onto Oslo in 1993.
Mr Netanyahu later drew back from the terms of even this more limited agreement.
"Barak will begin final status talks but he will not stop settlement expansion, which has its own dynamic," Dr Khatib said.
In his view, "The final status talks" covering Jerusalem, territory, borders and refugees "will not come to anything because the gaps between the two sides are unbridgeable."
Dr Ziad Abu Amr, an independent member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, from Gaza, was only slightly more optimistic. "People are exaggerating the significance of a Barak victory. He is only the lesser of two evils. Soon after he takes power, we will confront the same old problems. The stated positions of Labour and Likud on the relevant issues are very close. We cannot forget that Labour also failed to meet its commitments to Oslo.
"But the world did not pressure Labour to deliver during the prime ministries of Mr Shimon Peres and the late Yitzhak Rabin."
Today, however, Dr Abu Amr believes the world wants clear results. "Now we will see how the new Israeli leadership will deal with the international trend to solve the Palestine problem. Europe and even the United States have recognised the Palestinian right to self-determination and statehood."
Speaking also as a member of the PLO's Central Council, which voted on April 27th to postpone a May 4th unilateral declaration of independence (UDI), Dr Abu Amr observed that the Palestinians could revive this option if Israel did not respond with the appropriate quid pro quo. "We have not given up UDI, only suspended it."
Mr Arafat, the Egyptian President, Mr Hosni Mubarak, and Jordan's King Abdullah personally called upon Israelis to "vote for peace" without specifying their preference for Mr Barak, fearing this would prompt Israelis to vote for Mr Netanyahu.
Arab leaders not directly involved in the Arab-Israeli dispute adopted a wait-and-see attitude.
In Gaza, the spiritual leader of Hamas said the militant Islamic movement would continue attacks against Israel regardless of whether Mr Netanyahu or Mr Barak won.
