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TEL AVIV (May 18) - Jubilant crowds descended last night on Tel Aviv's Kikar Rabin to celebrate the election of One Israel leader Ehud Barak, seen as likely to revive Yitzhak Rabin's peacemaking efforts. The crowd waved flags, raised signs reading "Rabin's way has won," shouted, danced and sang after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu conceded defeat and congratulated Barak. At 10 p.m. last night, when the exit polls showed Barak as the clear winner in yesterday's elections, the country's next leader was flying over Beersheba with his wife Nava, a few close aides and two helicopter pilots. With One Israel activists jumping up and down in the southern town he had just left and One Israel politicians gathered at the makeshift press center in Kiryat Shmona popping champagne, talking about a "mandate for change" and quietly discussing ministerial posts, Barak's spokeswoman sent out a message saying that "One Israel calls on its activists to show restraint and to remember that the polls are only exit polls, and not real results. We all need to stay at the ballot boxes and guard every single vote... There is much hard work ahead of us tonight." Despite Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's concession speech and the clear-cut results, as of press time Barak would make no official comment. He was determined, said a close aide, not to repeat the mistakes of 1996, when all celebrations and pronouncements proved premature. He would comment only after the final results were in, said his spokesman David Ziso. Barak's American advisers, meanwhile, who spent most of yesterday at the Dan Hotel drinking coffee, monitoring the early exit polls and briefing the foreign press, were in an ebullient mood. They admitted they had known it would be a landslide all day. Jim Gerstein, a key member of the advising team, said early in the day he would not be at all surprised if Barak won 60 percent of the vote once all the ballots were counted. As the evening wore on and the results began to sink in, more and more One Israel supporters made their way to the Tehila Halls in Kiryat Shmona, singing, "Ehud, king of Israel," dancing madly and clapping their hands wildly. Meimad's leader Rabbi Michael Melchior, finishing up evening prayers in the hall in Kiryat Shmona, had this to say: "This is a great victory for us and for all of Israel. Barak succeeded in bringing down the walls of hate and we go forth from here to a united future. Barak will be the leader of all of Israel."
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