by Keren Setton

JERUSALEM, April 1 (Xinhua) -- The decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not one of the leading issues on the agenda of the upcoming Israeli general elections.

In the past campaigns, a heated debate on possible solutions would ensue. This time, indifference and a seemingly growing consensus that nothing is going to change has sidelined the issue.

As the April 9 election day comes closer, the escalating tension between Israelis and Palestinians surrounding the Gaza Strip has brought the issue to the forefront during the last couple of weeks. But no one is talking about peace as a solution - rather the debate is on what kind of military might is needed to stop rocket fire into Israel.

Candidates are fighting over who will be tougher against the Hamas militant organization which rules the Gaza Strip.

The question of how to deal with Hamas has been on Israeli minds since the group violently took over the power of the Gaza Strip in 2007. In many of the parties' platforms, the issue was hardly mentioned.

In the past, Israelis were traditionally divided into left and right - the left favored giving the Palestinians territories in the West Bank currently occupied by Israel in return for cessation of violence, while the right-wing was traditionally against any territorial concessions, saying the land the Palestinians covet for their future state is historically Jewish and should never be handed over to anyone else.

The Palestinians see the territories in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as part of their future state.

Decades of conflict, failed negotiations and developments that have divided the Palestinians into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have made for a very complicated situation.

The Israeli Democracy Institute (IDI) and the Tel Aviv University (TAU) have been monitoring Israeli public opinion on the Israeli - Palestinian conflict since 1994.

In its latest survey conducted in December 2018 after the announcement of the elections, Israelis are shown divided on the question of the renewal of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA). 47.5% of Israelis thought it was important for the next government to do so, while 48% said it was not important to them.

It is said the elusive American peace deal would be published after the elections and U.S. President Donald Trump and his advisers have been working on a plan to achieve peace in the Middle East.

At the start of the election campaign, allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to voters to vote for right-wing parties in order to strengthen their position ahead of the unveiling of the plan.

"They tried to create a momentum regarding the need to strengthen the right and Netanyahu, so that he will not need to surrender to peace plans after the elections," said Dr. Nimrod Goren, head of the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies.

"They are saying there will be danger after the elections and there is need for a strong right-wing so that Netanyahu will not be tempted to be flexible on peace plans."

The main party opposing Netanyahu, "Blue and White," is not a vociferous opponent when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its leading candidates, many former army generals, come from the right-wing of the political map and call for strengthening Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank. It does not mention a Palestinian state.

"Talking peace does not bring votes," said Dr. Alon Liel, former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, adding "the two state solution appears to be lost and peace is a dream in the far future."

It is easy for the parties, all of them, to ignore the Israeli-Palestinian issue because it has been on the backburner for several years now. The last time the rivalling sides met at the negotiating table was in 2014 and that ended in a resounding failure.

"The issue isn't featuring on the campaign because the issue simply does not exist," Liel told Xinhua.

For the Israeli leader, who seeks to be re-elected for a fourth consecutive term, this can be considered a success. After years of butting heads with former American President Barack Obama on the issue, Netanyahu has an ally in Trump which has helped him to all but delete the thorny issue.

It has been a year of political gifts from Trump to Netanyahu, beginning with the American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and the recent recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Both moves were highly controversial in the international arena were greeted in Israel by the overwhelming majority of the population.

The two-state solution which was once seen as the only solution to the conflict has become almost redundant.

"Netanyahu has what to show in terms of successes in the international arena. The fact that the Palestinian issue is non-existent is also seen by Netanyahu as a success because he wanted to make it disappear," said Liel.

"The current government has managed to downplay the relevance of the matter and has succeeded in its opinion to remove the issue from the public discourse," Goren said.

This has been aided by an increasingly complex internal Palestinian situation in which Hamas controls Gaza and the Fatah, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, controls the Palestinian territories in the West Bank.

"The Palestinian rift makes it really hard to think of the two-state solution," Goren said, adding "there are no negotiations, there is no hope and hope isn't being brought back to the public."

And so it seems that the result of the Israeli elections, which polls currently show Netanyahu expecting to win, will not lead to any change in the attitude towards the conflict.

Striving towards a two-state solution will probably not be a deal-breaker in coalition negotiations expected to begin on April 10.

"I do not believe there will be a change," Liel concluded, "this will only happen if the two-state solution returns to the coalition negotiations."