Chisdai Eliezer, head of the Alfei Menashe Local Council in western Shomron: \"The Likud voted courageously that a Palestinian state would not be established. It is important to note that this was in no way a vote against Sharon or to weaken him; on the contrary, there is wide support for his policies. The Likud simply said yes to its own nationalist ideology...\"
Arutz-7\'s Haggai Segal commented:
\"The media community today, and yesterday too, seems to have a strange tendency to see what happened yesterday in the Likud as a personal confrontation between two men. But the press is mistaken, and not the first time in this context: The dramatic and historic event that occurred in the Likud last night was that for the first time in years, the little-by-little encroaching of the concept of a PA state into the Israeli national consensus has been put on hold. By a wide majority, the membership of the ruling party voted against all those who say that a Palestinian state is historically inevitable and irreversible. The same Likud that turned its back on its ancient vision of \'two banks to the Jordan,\' that evacuated the Sinai, that recognized the Oslo Accords, that gave away Hevron - finally put its foot on the brakes. It is now against the establishment of a second Arab state on the lands of historic Eretz Yisrael.\"
Moshe Feiglin, leader of the Jewish Leadership movement which has spent much of the past two years trying to become an influential faction in the Likud, said that Netanyahu \"was dragged along with our ideas... His ego won a victory, but politically he didn\'t win so big, because when he gets to a position of power, he will have to act.\" Feiglin was happy about his movement\'s prospects in making an ideological difference in the Likud, and consequently in the country: \"If we did so well without any official representatives in the Central Committee or in the Knesset, imagine what will happen when there are party primaries and we are able to get hundreds of members in the Central Committee!\"
\"What happened last night was actually the budding of deep processes that began to be planted by the Jewish Leadership movement in the past six years, and specifically in the political framework over the past two years,\" Feiglin wrote today. \"Neither Sharon nor Netanyahu won. In the most basic sense, the winner was the People of Israel that reaffirmed its loyalty to its Land and its values.\"
Political correspondent Menachem Rahat agreed that the issue was not only a personal one: \"You may have noticed that Sharon was greeted more enthusiastically than Netanyahu, even though he later lost the vote, such that it is certainly not solely a personal war. I would say that it was 60% an ideological struggle and 40% personal...\" Rahat noted that two chances for compromise proposals were missed: \"One by Education Minister Livnat, namely, merely to vote to reaffirm the party platform; this wasn\'t Sharon\'s fault, as it was first rejected by the other side. But he did make a mistake by not accepting Minister HaNegbi\'s compromise, namely to vote that no \'foreign sovereignty would be established west of the Jordan.\' If he would have accepted that idea, he would have spared himself the defeat.\"
Arutz-7\'s Haggai Segal commented:
\"The media community today, and yesterday too, seems to have a strange tendency to see what happened yesterday in the Likud as a personal confrontation between two men. But the press is mistaken, and not the first time in this context: The dramatic and historic event that occurred in the Likud last night was that for the first time in years, the little-by-little encroaching of the concept of a PA state into the Israeli national consensus has been put on hold. By a wide majority, the membership of the ruling party voted against all those who say that a Palestinian state is historically inevitable and irreversible. The same Likud that turned its back on its ancient vision of \'two banks to the Jordan,\' that evacuated the Sinai, that recognized the Oslo Accords, that gave away Hevron - finally put its foot on the brakes. It is now against the establishment of a second Arab state on the lands of historic Eretz Yisrael.\"
Moshe Feiglin, leader of the Jewish Leadership movement which has spent much of the past two years trying to become an influential faction in the Likud, said that Netanyahu \"was dragged along with our ideas... His ego won a victory, but politically he didn\'t win so big, because when he gets to a position of power, he will have to act.\" Feiglin was happy about his movement\'s prospects in making an ideological difference in the Likud, and consequently in the country: \"If we did so well without any official representatives in the Central Committee or in the Knesset, imagine what will happen when there are party primaries and we are able to get hundreds of members in the Central Committee!\"
\"What happened last night was actually the budding of deep processes that began to be planted by the Jewish Leadership movement in the past six years, and specifically in the political framework over the past two years,\" Feiglin wrote today. \"Neither Sharon nor Netanyahu won. In the most basic sense, the winner was the People of Israel that reaffirmed its loyalty to its Land and its values.\"
Political correspondent Menachem Rahat agreed that the issue was not only a personal one: \"You may have noticed that Sharon was greeted more enthusiastically than Netanyahu, even though he later lost the vote, such that it is certainly not solely a personal war. I would say that it was 60% an ideological struggle and 40% personal...\" Rahat noted that two chances for compromise proposals were missed: \"One by Education Minister Livnat, namely, merely to vote to reaffirm the party platform; this wasn\'t Sharon\'s fault, as it was first rejected by the other side. But he did make a mistake by not accepting Minister HaNegbi\'s compromise, namely to vote that no \'foreign sovereignty would be established west of the Jordan.\' If he would have accepted that idea, he would have spared himself the defeat.\"