The hope of Israel's green organizations that the various political parties will place environmental issues high on their agendas again remains unfulfilled in the current election campaign. The manifestos of most of the parties do indeed include a section on the environment, but the vast majority do not even mention environmental issues in their daily public relations activities. The election broadcasts of Likud, Labor and Shas make no reference at all to environmental problems - hardly surprising considering these parties' scant activities in such areas in the Knesset. However, even the broadcasts of parties that are supposed to reserve a prominent place for environmental issues - Meretz and Shinui - hardly touch on the matter. Both the latter have lawmakers - Yehudit Naot and Avraham Poraz (Shinui) and Mussi Raz and Ilan Gillon (Meretz) - who were very active on environment issues. The Adam, Teva Vadin: Israel Union for Environmental Defense organization compiles an annual report on MKs' activities in the field, and the four won recognition in the latest report, with Meretz presented as the party most active when it comes to environmental issues (based on the number of legislative initiatives). Shinui was mentioned in second place. The Shinui election broadcasts make no mention of problems such as hazardous materials, the environmental threats in the Eilat bay, or defending the planning system from a takeover by the Prime Minister's Office - a matter that greatly occupied Poraz and Naot. In addition, the broadcasts do not relate at all to the party platform's extensive chapter on the environment. "The party has an information line and it was impossible to include all the issues," Naot explains. "It doesn't refer to an issue such as women's rights, which is a very important one in my opinion, simply because it is impossible to capture everything in an election platform." The Meretz broadcasts also make little mention of environmental issues. Raz says that he is unaware of the reason for this and suggests directing the question to others in the party's election campaign headquarters. Nevertheless, he and Gillon have not stopped their activities in the field even during the election campaign. Last week, for example, the two toured through Arab communities, speaking only of issues as such sewage and waste problems and the establishment of parks. The only party in the current campaign that defines itself as "environmental" is the Green Party. Some three weeks ago, the party held an unusual press conference for the current election campaign: The party's leadership convened representatives of the media on a strip of Jaffa's coastline that has been turned into a waste dump over the years and used a tractor to demonstrate rehabilitation work at the site. The leader of the party, Pe'er Visner, promised at the event that the Greens would work in the Knesset to put an end to air pollution and the destruction of the country's beaches. The party's leaders also promised to legislate a law that would ensure that every approval of a construction plan would be contingent on the prevention of environmental damage. However, the Greens do not have a countrywide party mechanism and infrastructure. Visner says that the party has activists from the Galilee and down to the Negev and that the party's activities are winning support in numerous areas. Yet it appears that the party's principal activities continue to focus on Tel Aviv. Visner says his party is the only environmental party in Israel, while the spokesman for the Green Leaf Party, Dror Nissan, begs to differ, noting that his party maintains ties with the Green Party in Germany. Although the general picture seems to indicate that the parties' general concern for environmental issues is minimal, this does not mean that the upcoming Knesset won't have a significant number of lawmakers who are strongly aware of such issues. This was apparent in the present Knesset, with MKs such as Raz, Naot, Nehama Ronen (Center) and Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) promoting a number of impressive legislative initiatives in the field and blocking a number of initiatives that would have been hazardous to the environment.