Danon fires right back at Netanyahu
In an earlier post, I reported that Prime Minister Netayahu has
threatened to fire Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon if Danon does not
resign over the release next week of another 26 'Palestinian' terrorists. But Danon is not backing down and has issued another threat: He says that he will
oust Netanyahu as head of the Likud if Netanyahu signs US Secretary of State John FN Kerry's 'framework agreement.'
Speaking Thursday in an interview with Army Radio, Danon said that US
Secretary of State John Kerry's yet-to-be publicly released framework
agreement can not be accepted by the head of the right-wing faction.
"This framework would mean the abandonment of the Jordan Valley, a
return to the 67 lines and the division of Jerusalem," Danon stated.
"We
are a democratic faction and their will be a race for the leadership
when we get to that point. However, as someone who knows the hearts of
Likud members, we will not support a framework that brings us in line
with the positions of [Justice Minister] Tzipi Livni."
If there were a fair vote of the Likud's membership, my guess is that in this case Danon would win. But Netanyahu has
played dirty before. Danon
should have been a minister and not just a deputy. And the younger generation is
much more right wing than Netanyahu's generation.
Pass the popcorn. One of them could end up starting his own party.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Danny Danon, Likud Central Committee, Likud party, Likud Young Generation
Netanyahu to form new party?
From London Heathrow, awaiting take off....
Prime Minister Netanyahu moved a step closer to leaving the Likud and forming his own party on Monday as the Tel Aviv district court ruled that
he cannot prevent items from coming to a vote before the Likud's Central Committee.
The Likud's law committee had ruled
that the power to convene the party's central committee could be taken
away from the party leader and given to the head of the central
committee, hawkish Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon. When an
internal Likud court overruled the law committee, Danon took Netanyahu
to the external court.
Judge Dafna Avnieli ruled in Danon's favor and forced Netanyahu's
lawyers, who work for the party, to pay Danon NIS 40,000 in legal bills.
In her ruling, she criticized Netanyahu for trying to paralyze the
party's institutions.
The significance of the ruling is that Danon
will now be able to convene the central committee next month for votes
on key issues Netanyahu opposes, including opposing territorial
concessions and preventing a merger with Foreign Minister Avigdor
Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu party.
And Netanyahu may be on his way out.. except that you have to wonder how many MK's will follow.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Danny Danon, Likud Central Committee, Likud party
Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu to split?
Against Prime Minister Netanyahu's wishes, his Likud party's central committee seems likely to vote to
split from Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party.
"If there's a proposal to break up the partnership, it will pass," [Deputy Defense Minister Danny] Danon said.
Danon
said there could end up being secret-ballot vote of central committee
members next Thursday. That could result in a proposal to separate from
Yisrael Beytenu passing by an even wider margin, which Netanyahu could
find more difficult to ignore.
The central committee, which is
more hawkish than the general Likud membership, is also expected to pass
proposals backing annexing Judea and Samaria and endorsing Jewish
prayer on the Temple Mount.
But unlike what had been expected
previously, the committee will not vote on a proposal that would make it
harder for Netanyahu to get elected to a third consecutive term as
Likud leader.
There will also not be a vote yet on a controversial
proposal to prevent Likud politicians from running for re-election if
they vote against convention decisions in the cabinet or Knesset.
Two comments. First, the guy you have to thank for this is Moshe Feiglin who, although he still has not managed to unseat Netanyahu, has succeeded in pushing more right-wing candidates to the forefront of both the central committee and the Likud's Knesset delegation.
And second, for those of you who are looking for Netanyahu to pull an Ariel Sharon and leave the Likud to start his own party, it won't happen. Sharon had enough of his own loyalists in the Likud in 2005 to take a sizable portion of the faction with him. Netanyahu is one of only 2-3 Likud MK's who backs a 'Palestinian state' and is unlikely to take more than a handful of MK's with him. And he can't pull this off by suddenly becoming the head of Yisrael Beiteinu because Liberman is extremely unlikely to step down to let Netanyahu in.
Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, Likud Central Committee, Likud party, Moshe Feiglin, Yisrael Beiteinu
The Likud a democracy? Don't make me laugh
The Likud's MK's are sharpening their knives for the Prime Minister, because he has decided to leave the current Likud ministers in place even though
many young MK's ranked far higher in the party's primary.
Meanwhile, the younger generation of Likud MKs, who ranked high in
the party primary - Ze'ev Elkin, Danny Danon, Tzipi Hotovely, Yariv
Levin and others - began to express frustration at reports that
Netanyahu does no plan to appoint any new ministers from within his
party.
Danon expressed careful optimism that he - ninth on the
party list - could get a ministry instead of MK Tzachi Hanegbi - 26th,
who Netanyahu promised a portfolio.
"I hope the prime minister
will consider the results of the primary," Danon said. "He needs to [go
by the party list], because the Likud is a democracy."
Danon also
called for Netanyahu to realize that there is a new generation of
lawmakers in the Likud, and that not all of the old guard should be left
in place.
"Netanyahu can't ignore what Likud voters want," Danon added.
MK
Tzipi Hotovely, the highest-ranking woman in the Likud, attacked
Netanyahu's intentions more directly, saying that he is making a
mistake.
"It's a mistake to go for old politics and recycling the
old list of ministers. At the end of the day, the public will look at
the Likud's list and say, if the government doesn't change, then why did
we vote in the primary? In a way, this shows lack of faith in the the
[primary] voting process," Hotovely told Galei Yisrael Radio.
Hotovely
specifically mentioned Culture and Sport Minister Limor Livnat, 27th
on the party's 31-seat list, as someone who should no longer be part of
the government.
"Thousands of votes separate me and Limor Livnat," Hotovely pointed out.
I suppose we should be thankful he's given up on keeping Ehud Barak as Defense Minister. But Danny's Danon's phrase that I highlighted above is so wrong it's pathetic. Netanyahu pushed Moshe Feiglin down to an unrealistic slot after the 2009 primaries, he prevented a new central committee from being elected for years, and he is now trying to return the Likud to a system where the Central Committee - rather than party members - selects and ranks the candidates for MK positions.
As someone who spent more than three hours voting in the primary, I'm angry but not surprised. .The Likud a democracy? It's about as democratic as Egypt.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Danny Danon, democracy, Israeli Knesset, Likud Central Committee, Likud party, Likud Young Generation, Limor Livnat, Moshe Feiglin, Tzipi Hotovely
Why I got a call from Bibi
Yes, the Netanyahu campaign is
in a panic about Jerusalem.
Netanyahu made a point of calling key central committee members in Jerusalem, where a political deal could end up helping his competition, Likud activist Moshe Feiglin. There are 8,700 Likud members in Jerusalem, which is the party’s largest branch.
About 1,400 Likud members in Jerusalem were recruited to the party by Feiglin’s Manhigut Yehudit organization.
Netanyahu’s allies expressed concern that due to the deal, the Feiglin supporters who vote could outnumber the rest of the Likud members in the capital who show up at the polls.
“Netanyahu needs to make sure there are 3,000 people who come to vote in Jerusalem,” said the current head of the branch, Mishael Ben-Ami. “Even if he wins the election nationwide by a landslide, it would be a real blow if he loses in Jerusalem. Netanyahu’s enemy is not Feiglin, who is not taken so seriously. Netanyahu’s main enemy is complacency.”
No Manhigut Yehudit members from Jerusalem were elected to the central committee the last time an election was held for the committee nearly a decade ago, due to deals that were made and broken. This time, Feiglin’s supporters have made sure they will be well represented.
Feiglin’s representative in Jerusalem, Dr. Nitza Kahane, worked out a deal with a group of Jerusalem vote contractors led by Dudu Amsalem, Yisrael Yehoshua, amd Yitzhak Kaufman.
...
Kahane said the deal was intended to ensure the revival of the Likud’s Jerusalem branch, which has had almost no political activity for nearly 10 years.
“There is a lot of hatred and bad blood in the branch,” she said. “A lot came from divisiveness in the branch. Our goal was to end the tension in the branch.”
There hasn't been an election for the Central Committee in ten years because Netanyahu - and before him Sharon - feared losing. That tells you all you need to know about democracy in the Likud. Enough is enough.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Likud Central Committee, Likud party, Moshe Feiglin
Don't boycott the primaries
This story makes no sense.
On Sunday, the government proposed a compromise which would see the residents of Migron voluntarily move elsewhere - to nearby land. YNet is reporting that as a result of the compromise proposal, Netanyahu's opponents on the Right within the Likud are
calling for a boycott of next week's primaries. Huh?
Activists affiliated with the Likud party's rightist camp urged faction members to boycott the primaries in protest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's intention to evacuate Migron outpost.
Netanyahu on Sunday called on the residents of the illegal West Bank outpost Migron to accept a compromise offer by which permanent structures would be relocated to State-owned land, while the evacuated land would be turned over to the Civil Administration.
However, members of the Likud party's National Headquarters expressed dissatisfaction with the compromise, claiming the prime minister was thwarting a vote on the "outpost bill" at the Ministerial Committee on Legislative Affairs.
The bill is meant to regulate the status of outposts build on private Palestinian land that has not been claimed for four years.
"This is a blow to democracy, because there is a majority in the committee that supports the bill, and because the prime minister discriminatorily approved 60,000 illegal Bedouin homes in the Negev and hundreds of apartments for Arabs in Lod in his current term in office," the activists wrote in a petition.
"Unfortunately, Netanyahu has been acting in contradiction with the values of the Likud movement, while giving Ehud Barak a free hand in implementing policies against the Jews settling in their country. This is not the policies of the Likud and the national camp."
The petition stated that "in the current primaries, Netanyahu is an irrelevant candidate whose ideology we do not share. We, the heads of the Likud National Headquarters urge you to preserve the democracy within the faction and strengthen the values of the Likud, and not participate in this farce, whose results are known in advance."
I suspect there may have been a mistranslation here from Hebrew to English. Here's the poster in Hebrew.
That seems to say "don't vote for Netanyahu" and that makes a lot more sense to me than staying home. "Go vote and vote for Feiglin" strikes me as a much better response than staying home.
But if you
read the whole thing, you will see that YNet is consistent (other than the poster) in saying that there actually has been a call to stay home next Tuesday.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Likud Central Committee, Migron, Moshe Feiglin, outposts
Netanyahu playing dirty in the Likud again
You may recall that before the 2009 elections, Prime Minister Netanyahu played some
dirty tricks to move Moshe Feiglin (he whose name must not be mentioned in the Likud) from a realistic number 20 on the Likud list to a pretty unrealistic number 36. Feiglin is not in the Knesset.
Feiglin responded by doing what he does best. He got hundreds - maybe even thousands - of Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria to sign up for the Likud. And now, Netanyahu is trying to
dilute their votes as well by increasing the number of 'reserved' spots in the Likud Central Committee for residents of Israel's cities.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will convene Likud’s central committee in two weeks in an effort to prevent residents of Judea and Samaria and other hawks from obtaining too much power in the party, Netanyahu told his faction at the Knesset on Monday.
More than 100,000 Likud members will be eligible to vote for a new committee on January 31. Places on the committee are allocated to representatives of Likud branches across the country. Netanyahu said he would ask the committee to approve a 30 percent increase in the number of committee members allocated to cities in order to dilute the power of Likud branches in Judea and Samaria.
Sources close to Netanyahu said the numbers of committee members from the West Bank rose artificially due to an outdated rule passed in 1992. The rule sets the number of committee members from Judea and Samaria based on how many people in the region voted Likud in the last election.
In other regions, the committee member totals are based on the region’s voter registration drive.
“This is a reasonable way to deal with the situation,” Netanyahu said, according to those present in the closed-door meeting.
Once again, Netanyahu is trying to change the rules in the middle of the game. But the question is whether the current Central Committee members - who have already
helped Netanyahu to consolidate power once in this election cycle - will have enough integrity to say no to his second request. Well,
maybe.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Likud Central Committee, Moshe Feiglin
He whose name must not be spoken
A while back, Prime Minister Netanyahu engineered a change in how his party's central committee is selected in order to entrench the current regime, which favors him. Now, once again, Netanyahu is in danger of losing control of the Likud to 'the Right.' And once again, he is going to try
some dirty tricks.
More than 100,000 Likud members will be eligible to vote on January 31 to elect members of the party’s influential central committee. In the first three months after that race, the committee is permitted to change the party’s constitution with a simple majority, rather than the two-thirds majority required most of the time.
Netanyahu has done everything possible to delay the vote, which was supposed to take place shortly after the 2009 general election. He went to several courts, including the Supreme Court, to get the vote postponed.
Hawks in the party used the time to register as many Likud members as possible in Judea and Samaria in an effort to shift the party to the Right. Meanwhile, Netanyahu barely signed up any new members who would be loyal to him.
Only three weeks ago did Likud MKs warn Netanyahu that he could lose control over the party if he did not take immediate action. He began legal proceedings to change the method of selecting central committee members, which would require a court order to delay the January 31 vote again.
Netanyahu wants to change a party rule that sets the number of central committee members from Judea and Samaria based on how many people in the region voted for Likud in the last election. The rule was set when most of the settlers voted for parties further to the Right, but in the last election, they voted overwhelmingly for the Likud.
The result of the rule is that the Likud branch in Samaria could end up having several times as many members as the branch in nearby Afula, for instance. Between the members from Judea and Samaria and other hawks among the Likud’s founders and from the Jerusalem branch, the party’s institutions could become much more right-wing from January 31 onward.
“Bibi has a real problem here,” a Likud activist said. “Because he fell asleep and didn’t deal with the situation, the central committee could make things very hard on him. He is losing control over the party.”
Were Netanyahu more successful in getting loyalists into the central committee, he might have used the key three months after the January 31 election to try to pass a proposal enabling him to reserve slots for candidates he would choose for the next election.
He might have used that right to reserve slots for Defense Minister Ehud Barak and members of his Independence Party.
In what could make things even harder for Netanyahu, hawkish MK Danny Danon is expected to run for the chairmanship of the Likud convention, which is what the central committee is called for its key three months following its election. Danon has vowed to prevent from Barak and his allies from joining Likud.
For the record, Barak claims he doesn't want to join the Likud. Well, we (yes, I'm a card-carrying member of the Likud) don't want him either.
Maybe Bibi should have talked to the '
bad guy' at the top of this post three years ago. Because it sounds like all is going according to the plan of he whose name must not be spoken.
Heh.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Likud Central Committee, Likud party, Manhigut Yehudit, Moshe Feiglin
Obama demands 'dramatic statements' from Bibi, Likud demands that he build
President Obama's obsession with the 'Palestinians' is getting worse. Now, he's demanding 'dramatic statements' from Prime Minister Netanyahu, including a reference to the
1949 armistice lines '
1967 borders.'
The Obama Administration will not make do with statements that are "not dramatic" alongside a new peace initiative reportedly planned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, officials in Jerusalem say.
The political sources said they fear that the US Administration will demand clear reference to the 1967 borders as part of the plan and a subsequent Netanyahu speech.
The officials said the PM would not be able to address sensitive issues such as Jerusalem's division or Palestinian refugees. Hence, the sources estimated that the issue of borders "must be on the table," with America expecting Netanyahu to refer to the 1967 borders as the basis for a final-status agreement and the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In the past, the prime minister has refrained from addressing the issue of borders, for fear that any statement on the matter would obligate Israel to agree to such boundaries in a future agreement.
...
Political sources said that while ties with America have not been harmed, the relationship between President Obama and PM Netanyahu is "not as intimate as it should have been. An Israeli source said that the White House holds "great mistrust" towards Netanyahu and "has not granted him one minute of mercy."
But over the weekend, JPost reported that 19 of the Likud's 27 members signed a statement telling Bibi '
just build Bibi, build.'
“Netanyahu feels that he is alone, under pressure from Obama and the world, but he is not,” council director-general Naftali Bennett said.
“The entire government, the entire Likud and the overwhelming majority of Israelis are telling Netanyahu: Just build already. The only government since the Six Day War that has applied such a freeze on the cities in Judea and Samaria is the Netanyahu government. This is unacceptable.”
The list of quotes includes ministers Moshe Ya’alon, Silvan Shalom, Yuval Steinitz, Gideon Sa’ar, Gilad Erdan, Yuli Edelstein, Israel Katz and Limor Livnat, deputy ministers Ayoub Kara and Leah Ness, and MKs Ze’ev Elkin, Danny Danon, Tzipi Hotovely, Tzion Pinyan, Haim Katz, Yariv Levin, Miri Regev, Carmel Shama-Hacohen and Ophir Akunis.
“The freeze is over and we must return to building throughout the Land of Israel, because that’s the way it must be,” said Steinitz, who is close to Netanyahu. “We made problematic gestures whose time has ended. The time has come to return to building and getting built.”
Absent from the list were dovish ministers Dan Meridor, Michael Eitan and Yossi Peled, Netanyahu himself, recently promoted Social Welfare Minister Moshe Kahlon, and deputy minister Gila Gamliel, who does not want to rock the boat when she wants to be a minister.
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin and Minister-without- Portfolio Bennie Begin, who both back building in Judea and Samaria, are not on the list, because Rivlin feels he needs to be statesmanlike in his post, and because Begin was sick this week.
In other words, it's 23 out of 27. The only ones really opposed are Netanyahu himself, Meridor, Eitan and Peled. You may recall that Netanyahu recruited Meridor and Peled to the Likud.
And the freeze in Judea and Samaria is real. Also over the weekend, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported a
72% decline in housing starts in Judea and Samaria in 2010.
Netanyahu is like a deer in the headlights. He's frozen and cannot make up his mind: Does he want to please Obama, or does he want to please the vast majority of Israelis including an overwhelming majority in his own party? If Israel were a true democracy, this would be a no-brainer. But Ariel Sharon proved six years ago that Israel is not a true democracy. The party's central committee - which Netanyahu succeeded in
entrenching last year - can keep Netanyahu in power despite his country's wishes.
Or can they?
What could go wrong?
Labels: 1949 armistice lines, Binyamin Netanyahu, Judea and Samaria construction, Likud Central Committee, Obama's obsession with Palestinians
Feiglin's victory: Likud Central Committee opposes Netanyahu on 'settlement freeze' extension
Some of you may recall that nearly two years ago, I argued that the real winner of the Likud primary in 2008 was not the current Prime Minister, but
Moshe Feiglin, who managed to push more Right-leaning candidates up the slate in the Likud. While Netanyahu eventually managed to push Feiglin himself off the slate, and to get the Likud Central Committee to vote itself a
long-term existence (which he may now be regretting), he did not succeed in undoing Feiglin's efforts to cause a fundamental shift to the Right in the Likud. That
shift is on display now.
Members of the nationalist camp within the central committee are passing around a petition in support of MKs and ministers who oppose the freeze. The initiative began Thursday night, and already more than 280 members of the committee and Likud branch heads have signed on.
Organizers hope to get signatures from the majority of Central Committee members.
Copies of the letter will be sent to Likud politicians who voiced their opposition to a second ban on construction for Judea and Samaria Jews, with the aim of assuring them that by opposing their party's leader, they will have earned their party's support.
“This week, when a demand to renew the freeze in Judea and Samaria was made public and we needed your help as our loyal representative in the government, you were there for us,” the letter states. “We the undersigned will not forget this; when you need our help as loyal party members, we will be there for you.”
In June, the Central Committee voted unanimously in favor of resuming construction in Judea and Samaria when the original 10-month freeze expired.
Netanyahu is not Arik Sharon and he will not go and start his own party, nor will he join Kadima, where he would be second fiddle to Livni (or third to Livni and Mofaz).
Heh.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Likud Central Committee, Moshe Feiglin, settlement freeze extension
