Orit Strook, Director of the Judea and Samaria Human Rights organization and a candidate on the National Union party’s Knesset list, said on Tuesday that she does not believe the results of the primaries in the Likud would negatively affect her party.
Members of the Likud chose to place at the top of their Knesset list many members with nationalistic views, and it has been speculated that this may cause voters to vote for Likud rather than for the joint National Union-Jewish Home list.
"I congratulate all the groups that helped those who are faithful to the Land of Israel to be placed at the front of the Likud list, but it does not hurt in any way the desire of the national religious public to vote for our joint list,” Strook, who was placed in the fourth spot on the National Union list, told Arutz Sheva.
“The voters now know that Tzipi Hotovely and Danny Danon are safe in the top ten, but all the others who were pushed to the bottom of the list, those who were not loyal to Israel and were pushed down because of it, we must leave at home, outside the Knesset,” she added.
Strook said that the voters would ultimately decide how many religious Zionists will be in the next Knesset. "I hope that we have a union agreement [with the Jewish Home] and the voters will be the ones to decide whether to vote for a party that is right of the Likud and thus prevent most of those who come after Gila Gamliel (who placed in the 19th spot on the Likud list –ed.) from entering the Knesset,” she said.
Strook noted that she is aware that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wants to integrate people with more centrist views in his government and because of this, she said, she believes it is important to ensure that the Likud does not become too big after January’s election.
“We should ensure that the Likud does not become too big and would thus need us to join the coalition,” she said. “We need to have someone guarding the Likud from the right.”
MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, who broke off from the National Union and formed a new party named Power to Israel, said earlier on Tuesday that the newly selected Likud list contains good nationalist names – but those names are not enough to keep Likud's leader from steering the nation in the wrong direction.
"Without a doubt," he said, "Elkin, Hotovely, Yariv Levin and Danny Danon are honest ideologues and they mean what they say. However, we must remember that they were already in the Knesset in the previous term, and that did not prevent Netanyahu from recognizing a Palestinian state and freezing construction in Judea and Samaria."