Israeli PM Faces Tough Choice If Re-Elected After a lackluster three-month campaign, few doubt that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on his way to re-election. But the makeup of Netanyahu's next government remains a mystery. If re-elected on Tuesday, Netanyahu will face a critical decision that will define his term. He can form a majority coalition with the hard-line and religious parties he often calls his natural partners - or reach across the aisle and try to bring centrist parties into a broader-based government that might be more amenable to pursuing peace and ending, at least partly, the occupation of the West Bank and other territories. His decision will have deep implications. A narrow coalition of parties that oppose concessions to the Palestinians, while the easier option, would mean continued deadlock in Mideast peace efforts and increased confrontation with the international community, including Israel's key ally, the United States. A broad coalition could force Netanyahu to give powerful Cabinet posts to more moderate figures as the price of their support, and would likely draw fierce opposition from within his own Likud Party. In either case, the odds for a breakthrough in peace talks appear faint at best, because no Netanyahu-led coalition is likely to offer the Palestinians better peace terms than those they already have received and either rejected or ignored under previous governments. Netanyahu's own positions fall far short of anything acceptable to the Palestinians. FILE - In this Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 file photograph, a worker hangs a huge poster with an image of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu overlooking the Ayalon freeway in Tel Aviv, Israel. After a lackluster three-month campaign, there seems to be little doubt that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on his way to re-election. But the makeup of Netanyahu's next government remains a matter of great uncertainty. Likud officials refuse to say which way they are leaning. Netanyahu's campaign chairman, Cabinet Minister Gideon Saar, said Thursday that the party hasn't even started thinking about building the coalition. "This would send the wrong message that we've already won," Saar told an interviewer on Channel 2 TV. He said the party is focused on capturing as many seats in Israel's fragmented Knesset, or parliament, as possible. Under Israel's system, parties win a number of seats based on the percentage of votes they receive. No party has ever won an outright majority in the 120-seat parliament. The leader of the party with the best chance of cobbling together a majority is tapped as prime minister and gets the first chance to form a coalition. All the polls show that Netanyahu's Likud Party - in alliance with the more nationalist Israel Beitenu party - will win more than a quarter of the seats, and together with other rightist and religious parties should command at least a narrow overall majority. Although that can still change, the operating assumption in Israel is that Netanyahu will indeed emerge with a majority. In part, this is because the opposition center-left bloc of parties has failed to rally behind a single dominant leader. The conflict with the Palestinians and the fate of occupied territories, hotly debated in Israel for decades, has barely registered as a campaign issue. Many left-leaning parties - including the Labor Party, which traditionally has led the bloc - have focused on internal economic issues or stressed the personalities of their leaders. This reflects the sense that Israelis have given up hopes of reaching a peace deal with the Palestinians, and stressing other issues is the best way of attracting support. It has proven difficult, because among the current crop of party leaders Netanyahu is widely seen - even by some opponents - as the most plausible prime minister.