A few intellectuals on the Left are once again encouraging that voters submit blank ballots. Their slogan is: A White Slip of Paper. White is the color of purity. The color of conscience. The color of innocence. A person of conscience, they say, can vote only for a totally trustworthy candidate, one who would lead an ethical government, one who would lay out in advance his clear and credible credo on all matters that concern peace, social justice and an ethical policy. Let him state the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth during the election campaign. For the lack of such a candidate, a person of conscience must express his or her protest with a blank slip of paper.

In my opinion, this is actually an immoral approach, as well as an inefficient one.

The "white" ones say: All the candidates are bad. All are the same. There is no difference between Netanyahu, Barak and Mordechai. And therefore one shouldn't vote for any of them.

It sounds lovely, but it isn't logical. The same? Are there ever any two people who are "the same?" Is it possible that two politicians from different camps could be exactly "the same" in their views, personality, moral values or performance capability?

Okay, the "whites" may claim, perhaps not exactly the same, but almost. The difference between them is small.

And this is where the matter of morality comes in. A small difference? How small? When the stakes are war and peace, literally life or death? The lives of youths who are still with us, and who would be sentenced to death by the policies of one, versus being allowed to live and raise families and live out their natural lives by the policies of the other. Just how small need the difference be in order to change the destiny of even one person?

Then there are such matters as making a living. Poverty. Unemployment. Economic growth. Education. Freedom of conscience. Freedom of choice. The rule of law. Security. Those and dozens of other issues which determine our daily lives. If there is a "small difference" between the candidates -- is it really such a negligible matter?

The use of a blank ballot may appear as an act of protest, but in reality it is merely an act of resignation. There are those who believe that it teaches a lesson to the leaders, who would learn to treat us differently the next time around. But it is a risky gamble. The reward and punishment system may work in the free market: A mass boycott of a particular product in favor of another will affect the producers. Not so in the world of politics. Barak still expresses the views of the vast majority of the Leftist and Centrist camps. The weight of the consistent Left is too weak to force Barak to lean towards it, when the price is certain loss of a large chunk of voters, large enough to bring victory to the Right and with it a catastrophe. In a democracy, work is harder and more serious -- large sectors of the public must be convinced about the rightness of the new path, if one wants the leaders, too, to change their ways and means.

Ehud Barak is far from my ideal candidate. Some of the things that he has said during the campaign raise my hackles, even when I understand the strategic calculations behind them. But it behooves us to look closely at some of those "small differences" between him and Netanyahu:

• We are not electing just a Prime Minister but also the party which is behind him. Is there really just a "small difference" between such men as Shlomo Ben-Ami, Yossi Beilin, Avraham Burg, Chaim Ramon and Uzi Bar'Am, all doves' who heard the list of the Labor ("one Israel") patry and the likes of Tsakhi Ha'Negbi, Limor Livnat, Doron Shmueli and Israel Katz, all of them hawks with a record of oral and/0or physical violence, to say nothing of Ariel Sharon?
• In fact, we also elect indirectly many hundreds of other key people, from the General Director of the Israeli Broadcasting Authority to the Ambassador of Israel to Washington. Are all these people "the same?"
• On the matter of political hygiene, moral values, securing the rule of law and democratic procedures, is there only a small difference between the two camps? The poisoned public discourse, the wild demagoguery, the general atmosphere of daily incitement under Netanyahu -- are these negligible matters, or do they touch the very core of our society and state?
• The "whites" assert that there will be a national unity government, and that therefore it doesn't matter who is elected Prime Minister. I am willing to go so far as to say: Even if, heaven forbid, such a government becomes a reality, there still is a vast difference between a national unity government with Netanyahu as its leader, and a national unity government with Barak as its leader, whose ear would be leaning toward the U.S. and Europe, and who has behind him the legacy of Yitzhak Rabin. And it goes without saying that the very danger of a national unity government would greatly diminish if Barak and his people could set up a viable coalition without the right-wing.

The color white is also the color of the flag of surrender. At a time when the enemies of peace, the despoilers of the country and the hate-mongers are mobilizing to their last man in order to force us into another four years of disaster, standing by passively is an intolerable self-indulgence.