Susie Dym (mattot arim at gmail) is spokesperson for Mattot Arim, an Israeli NGO working toward peace-for-peace since 1992.
The Likud primaries are due to be held this coming Monday, 17 August. This is the largest democratic spectacle in Israel -- barring the national elections themselves.
It is thus not surprising that the primaries are heating up by the hour. The 2026 Mattot Arim Parliamentary Achievement Report has come out and has highlighted those Likud MKs who produced more ideological achievements than their colleagues.
The high-scoring Likud MKs in the Mattot Arim report were identified based on a 160-page long list of ideological achievements, many of which involved one or another of the Likud MKs. However, only some Likud MK’s were high scorers; other Likud MKs were far less active, the Mattot Arim report found.
High scorers were Justice Minister Yariv Levin, MK Amit Halevy, MK Ariel Kallner, MK Nisim Vaturi, MK Zev Elkin, MK Tali Gottlieb, MK Moshe Saada, MK Avichai Buaron, Communications Minister Shlomo Kari, and Minister Amichai Shikli.
These high-scoring Likud personalities each earned dozens of ideological achievements, each. In contrast, not a few other Likud Knesset members and ministers generated less than ten achievements each.
Mattot Arim, a veteran Israeli NGO which promotes peace-for-peace and opposes land-for-peace, also posed key ideological questions to the “local" candidates who will be the Likud’s new Knesset Members after election day. These candidates are little known, and Mattot Arim vetted them on behalf of the Likud’s many ideological voters.
The “local" candidates who gave ideological answers to the ideological questions were Shabtai Katash (Jerusalem- Shfela - Judea-Samaria), Dor Harlap (Tel-Aviv), Elad Zamir (Negev), Yair Freiman (Galilli), Shay Galili (Coastal Plain) and Zviel Rubin (Haifa).
The two ideological questions posed to new candidates had to do with support for resettling Gaza, to ensure that Gaza’s future is not Judenrein. In the past, a Judenrein Gaza was the sought-for outcome for the since-failed disengagement plan. The appalling results of the Judenrein policy for Gaza became apparent on Simchat Torah of 2023.
Another question posed by Mattot Arim had to do with awareness of and familiarity with Article 80 of the UN charter. While opponents of Israel avail themselves of infamous UNSC Resolution 2334 which accused Israel of illegal acts, pro-Israel groups point to Article 80 which is more binding than Resolution 2334, and which irrevocably establishes Jewish resettlement as the key land policy for Mandatory Palestine, also known as the Greater Land of Israel.
Israel, even in its “Greater" configuration, is geographically tiny and crowded, being dwarfed by the spacious Arab states around it. Thus, Article 80 is still an extremely important concept for Israeli politicians who oppose the land-for-peace policies which have been tried often, with troubling results each time.