Although the two major parties in Israel ran even in yesterday's election, a boost in support for the religious right may enable the conservatives to form a governing coalition, a panel of experts on Israeli politics said yesterday night.

After the latest election exit polls broadcast from Israel indicated that the leftist Labor party and the rightist Likud party each won close to 40 seats in the Israeli parliament, the panel said that the 17 seats won by religious parties would be thrown Likud's way to help the party form a majority coalition.

"It looks as if we will have a Likud-led coalition," Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies Nadav Safran told 200 people at a Kennedy School forum yesterday.

The audience watched the first live broadcast of Israeli election results to American audiences, viewing from 30 sites nationwide.

The Israeli government was elected in a system of proportional representation, in which more than a dozen political parties garnered seats in proportion to their total popular votes. To form a ruling coalition, a group must gain the participation of a majority of parliament's 120 members. The prime minister is usually the head of the largest party in the ruling coalition.

The religious parties will be drawn to the Likud for its accomodating attitude on domestic religious policy and its hard-line stance on the occupied territories, the experts said. Combined with its assured allies, Likud has 47 seats, and the religious support would bring the coalition a majority of 64 seats.

"For many of us, the results are absolutely desolating," said Martin Peretz, lecturer in Social Studies and publisher of the New Republic. He said theresults would create "not only an impasse in theIsraeli system, but an impasse between Israelisand Palestinians."

Since the 1984 elections the Israeli governmenthas been run by a unity coalition of the Likud andLabor parties, because neither party was able toform a majority coalition.

Experts say that the election, coming in themidst of the Palestinian uprising in the occupiedterritories, will determine how Israel copes withthe tensions and accomodates Palestinian demands.

In addition to security issues, the expertssaid that the intense domestic conflict betweensecular interests and strict religious views droveup support for the religious parties.

"The [religious parties] are interested not inthe irrelevant issues such as economic stability,the PLO and Israeli borders, but instead focus onthe eternal issues--whether Jews should be able toeat pig meat, whether movies should be open onSaturdays," Peretz said. "It is painful to see thefuture of the government, the psychologicalrealities of the Jewish people, determined byprimitive and fanatical men."

Although many countries, including the UnitedStates and the Soviet Union, favor the Labor partyas the one most likely to negotiate with thePalestinians, the election showed that a majorityof Israelis back the Likud and religious partieswhich take a more conservative approach to theconflict, experts on the televised broadcast said.

If the Likud forms a ruling coalition, thepanelists predicted that the government may stymiethe peace process.

"[Likud] should get a chance at last to carryout the policy it has advocated. I think thatpolicy will be damaging, but that is democracy,"Safran said. "Their ideas will have been tried andproven to be a failure.