By Alan Johnson and Richard Pater
Last week Israel’s ruling Likud party held internal elections to choose its list of parliamentary candidates for the upcoming national elections on January 22nd. Likud’s list will be combined with Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu roster to create a single list for the elections.
To the disappointment of some, the liberal wing of the party took a battering, as prominent ministers Dan Meridor, Micky Eitan, Avi Dichter, and even Benny Begin failed to make the list. This is blow to liberal nationalists that saw the party move away from the traditions of its founders. Likud’s first prime minister, Menachem Begin, and his ideological mentor, Zeev Jabotinsky, believed that, along with a staunch security policy, it was imperative that Israeli society upheld the rights of minorities and fiercely guarded democratic values like the independence of the judiciary.
So what going on? Has Likud now buried its founding values? The picture is more complicated than that.