Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu is seeking the approval of the Likud Central Committee members for the 
This system, Segal said, is a completely original Netanyahu innovation that may well be illegal.
incorporation of another party into the Likud Knesset list. Failing to obtain the requisite votes on the matter at the time of last week's party primaries, Netanyahu has arranged for the voting to continue this week with a traveling ballot box. The legally questionable road show seems thus far to be turning up only outside the homes of Netanyahu supporters, according to a report broadcast Monday night on Israel TV's Channel 2 news.
As explained by Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director of the Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA) organization, absorbing a new party would add its campaign funds to Likud coffers and also push Manhigut Yehudit's Moshe Feiglin and others further down on the Likud list by reserving at least one top slot for a representative of the incorporated party. If the deal is approved, then the other party's candidates would not have to stand for election by Likud party members in order to enter the Knesset list.
Channel 2 News correspondent Amit Segal tracked down one of seven rental cars carrying the ballot boxes, driven by a Likud-employed lawyer, in the city of Modi'in. The lawyer pursued a Likud Central Committee member with her ballot box all the way to the Azrieli Mall in order to obtain the member's vote. This system, Segal said, is a completely original Netanyahu innovation that may well be illegal.
"Miraculously," Segal quipped, "they are only making it to addresses of Netanyahu supporters. Supporters of Feiglin and Silvan Shalom, for example, have not received this take-away democratic service." Segal quoted a source close to Netanyahu as saying, "The voting will continue until we win."
Dr. Lerner notes that there have recently been discussions between Likud leaders and representatives of the Tzomet party on unification. Tzomet was founded as a right-wing, but militantly secularist party by General Rafael ("Raful") Eitan in 1987. It has been functioning as a party in name only ever since the 2003 elections. Two members of Tzomet defected from the party to support the Oslo Accords in 1993, which is the only way the agreements with the PLO were able to obtain Knesset approval. In 1996, the Tzomet party ran as a joint list with the Likud and the now-defunct Gesher party.
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