Dan Meridor
Dan MeridorFlash 90

Former Likud Minister Dan Meridor revealed on Sunday that Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni offered him to join her party before the last election.

Meridor, considered one of the “moderates” in the Likud party, was a longtime fixture in the party, but was placed in an unrealistic spot on the Likud’s Knesset list in the primaries before the last elections. He was thus not elected to the Knesset.

"The Likud members decided in the last primaries that me and [Benny] Begin and [Michael] Eitan will not be there," Meridor told the Knesset Channel Sunday.

“I had an offer from Tzipi Livni to join the Knesset and be in the government. I thought it was unethical to be thrown out by the Likud and then jump back in with another party. I thanked Livni but I refused. I had two other offers,” he added.

Meridor in the past declared that “Ramallah and Hevron are not part of the state of Israel”, and rejected calls on Israel to adopt the Levy Report, which declared unequivocally that the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are legal by international law.

Shortly after the elections, Meridor said in a television interview that he will be "in no hurry" to vote Likud in the next elections if the party becomes too "right-wing and extremist" for his tastes, saying the party has been ideologically transformed.

"It is a fact that whoever fought for values of human rights and democracy found himself outside," he said. "This is a change of direction."

"The political result of the attempt to create a more right wing and bellicose Likud was that the right lost votes," Meridor said. "I hope that this does not become a historical trend that sees the party turning from a leadership movement to a radical right wing movement."