Hardliners Gain Power in Netanyahu’s Likud Party

Local Editor

Hardliners in "Israeli" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud were elected into key positions in the party's governing institutions early Monday.

In details, Deputy War Minister Danny Danon, won the vote for the position of chairman of the party's Central Committee, a Likud spokeswoman said
Another hardliner, Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin, took over the Likud bureau which outlines party ideology.

Some 78 percent of the 3,600 members of the Likud Central Committee took part in the vote, the spokeswoman said, with Likud chairman Netanyahu distancing himself from the process and voting from a ballot brought to his residence in Occupied al-Quds.

Ballots were cast on Sunday, as US Secretary of State John Kerry wrapped up four days of intensive shuttle diplomacy in a bid to bring Israel and the PLO back to the negotiating table.
Netanyahu remains party leader, but his power within the Likud has diminished with Danon and Elkin securing their new positions.

"Netanyahu lost the Likud", read a headline in top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily, citing a senior party official who said that the premier failed to find a candidate who would run for any of the party's key posts.

Hardliner Miri Regev, who was vying for chair of the Likud's secretariat, lost out to Transportation Minister Israel Katz, who has held the position for 10 years.
Danon, 42, had already taken control of the Likud party's conference in a vote last week, a largely symbolic role but one which highlighted the growing power of the rebels inside Natanyahu's party.

The deputy minister recently sparked uproar when he said Netanyahu's government was not serious about a Palestinian state -- and that if it were put to a vote, most Likud ministers, as well as other key coalition partners, would oppose it.
Elkin also warned that if Netanyahu were to push ahead with moves to a Palestinian state, it would create "a deep split within Likud".

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team