Likud Chairman and Prime Ministerial candidate Binyamin Netanyahu has to choose between mollifying the international community regarding Moshe Feiglin, and his own party supporters – and he is choosing the former.
Though Feiglin made a strong showing in the party primaries earlier this week – he was voted into the 20th slot on the Likud list of Knesset candidates for the upcoming national elections – Netanyahu is showing no signs of coming towards him or his supporters. Feiglin was not even invited, until an hour before the event, to a gathering for new future Knesset Members in Likud headquarters on Thursday afternoon.
If Netanyahu insists on distancing himself from Feiglin and pro-Golan and pro-Yesha policies, many nationalist voters are liable to leave the Likud in favor of more nationalist parties.
In addition, it was reported in Haaretz – though nowhere else – that Netanyahu had reassured “confidantes” that Feiglin need not be taken seriously. The Likud will not end up losing votes because of Feiglin, he reportedly said, and “the entire faction is with me… They all called today and expressed their support. Feiglin will fade away very quickly.”
“They can blow it up more and more, but even this lemon doesn't have much juice left in it," Netanyahu was quoted as saying.
Netanyahu also met on Thursday with 26 European Union ambassadors, and sought to allay fears that what is perceived as his new “right-wing” Likud Knesset faction will sabotage the “peace process.” He told them that he would continue negotiations with both the Palestinian Authority and Syria, but slightly differently. He said he does not accept Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s position of “all or nothing,” meaning that nothing can be finalized until all the issues – including Jerusalem and the refugees – are finalized. He did not spell out his own position, however.
Regarding Syria, he said he favors dialogue with Damascus, but that Israel must remain on the Golan Heights. Again, he did not specify how much of the Golan must remain Israeli.
Netanyahu’s remarks come as the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) and Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) parties – the Likud’s rivals in the contest for support from the nationalist sector – are choosing their own candidates for the upcoming election. If Netanyahu insists on distancing himself from Feiglin and the pro-Golan and pro-Yesha policies that he represents, many nationalist voters are liable to leave the Likud in favor of more nationalist parties.
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